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Amazon.com:
“Stupid White Men, Michael Moore’s screed against “Thief-in-Chief” George Bush’s power elite, hit No. 1 at Amazon.com within days of publication. Why? It’s as fulminating and crammed with infuriating facts as any right-wing bestseller, as irreverent as The Onion, and as noisily entertaining as a wrestling smackdown.”
Tom Paulin:
“It’s the funniest book I’ve read in a long time. Absolutely amazing satirical wit, great journalism, great research. It’s like Samson tearing down the mausoleum - wonderful Swiftean rage but a generosity at the same time. Extraordinary man - it’s a great book. It pulls the place apart.”
Bonnie Greer:
“It’s a total masterpiece. My favourite chapter is called Kill Whitey. He says that, if you really think about it, he is actually afraid of seeing white people. If he sees a bunch of white people standing on a corner, he thinks, “Why am I in this neighbourhood at this time of night. Look at these people with weird Gap clothes.” He lists why you should be afraid of white people. Underneath it, what he is saying is something very serious. He’s saying what white men need to do is actually step aside and allow other points of view and ideas to come in.”
Dear friends,
For nearly four months, from September through December of last year, I did not know whether the book I had just written for HarperCollins — Stupid White Men — was ever going to be read by the American public. HarperCollins, one of the major publishing houses in the world, was trying to decide whether the words I had written were now “too offensive” to a nation which had suddenly fallen in love with George W. Bush. By the morning of September 11, 2001, the HarperCollins printing presses, located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, had already printed 50,000 copies of an announced 100,000-copy first printing of my new book — and then the world, for all of us, came to a standstill. . .
[Later] I was informed that there were “problems” with Stupid White Men. I was told that, unless I re-wrote large sections of my book (sections mostly dealing with my harsh but funny criticisms of the W.), plus change the title and the cover — and then, after all that, reimburse the publisher of up to $100,000 out of my pocket (!) so this new version could be reprinted — then the powers-that-be might actually destroy the ENTIRE run of 50,000 copies that had already been printed! My book would be sent to the shredder and “pulped.” I would then have to wait for up to a year before I could take it to another publisher. In other words, the book would be toast.
I refused to rewrite a single word of my book. I was proud of everything I had written.
There’s lots more in the book that I wanted out in the public arena months ago: An open letter to Yassir Arafat on how to really win and stop the bloodshed; a report on a chance run-in I had with Jeb Bush two weeks before the 2000 election on a deserted street in Tallahassee; my exploration of the three times (that I know of) that George W. Bush has been arrested and charged with crimes by the police — it’s all there, and I saw no need to change a single thing.
But I was told that “the political climate has changed in America” and that my attacks on Bush and his cronies would not be met with open arms by a Bush-adoring public. . .
[Finally] “Stupid White Men” debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list this week, and at #1 on the Publisher’s Weekly nonfiction bestseller list for independent bookstores. It’s still #1 for all books on Amazon, and, my personal favorite for a good laugh, #4 on the bestseller list for the Wall Street Journal. By the fifth day of release, the book had gone into its 9th printing. More copies have been sold in one week than Downsize This sold in a whole year. Pundits and publishers are stunned. “But the president has an 80% approval rating!” There’s something going on here, and they don’t know what it is. . .
I am writing this from northern California, two weeks into the book tour, on a drive with my family to visit small towns like Ukiah and Arcata. Last night in Santa Rosa, at the local high school, they had a thousand people packed inside and another 500 out on the lawn who couldn’t get in. It’s like this in all the places I visit. Hundreds, thousands, turning out to discuss all the sorry excuses for the state of the nation. People have had it with keeping silent for the past 6 months. They resent having felt like if they chose to question what the government is up to or, God forbid, dissent, they would somehow be considered unpatriotic.
Let’s get one thing straight — this is what it means to be “unpatriotic:”
1. When you shred our constitution and eliminate our civil liberties, passing laws that make it illegal to encourage opposition to the government’s actions, THAT is un-American.
2. When you send our kids to go fight and die on a foreign land so that you can finally build a pipeline for your oil backers across that country, THAT is un-American.
3. When you use the dead of September 11 to try to get huge tax cuts passed that will only benefit your rich benefactors, THAT is un-American.
4. When you allow criminals who are stealing the pensions of workers and retirees to come in and hand-pick the head of the agency which is supposed to be regulating them, and then you place some of the criminals’ top brass in your administration to “serve” as the secretary of the army and White House counsel, and then these criminals turn out to be your number one financial backers — and their law firm turns out to be your #3 backer — and, in spite of all this you still haven’t resigned in disgrace, THAT is un-American. . .
Off to shadow the Cheney shadow government,
Michael Moore
Author, Filmmaker, Evil-doer
StupidWhiteMen@aol.com
“Stupid White Men, Michael Moore’s screed against “Thief-in-Chief” George Bush’s power elite, hit No. 1 at Amazon.com within days of publication. Why? It’s as fulminating and crammed with infuriating facts as any right-wing bestseller, as irreverent as The Onion, and as noisily entertaining as a wrestling smackdown.”
Tom Paulin:
“It’s the funniest book I’ve read in a long time. Absolutely amazing satirical wit, great journalism, great research. It’s like Samson tearing down the mausoleum - wonderful Swiftean rage but a generosity at the same time. Extraordinary man - it’s a great book. It pulls the place apart.”
Bonnie Greer:
“It’s a total masterpiece. My favourite chapter is called Kill Whitey. He says that, if you really think about it, he is actually afraid of seeing white people. If he sees a bunch of white people standing on a corner, he thinks, “Why am I in this neighbourhood at this time of night. Look at these people with weird Gap clothes.” He lists why you should be afraid of white people. Underneath it, what he is saying is something very serious. He’s saying what white men need to do is actually step aside and allow other points of view and ideas to come in.”
Dear friends,
For nearly four months, from September through December of last year, I did not know whether the book I had just written for HarperCollins — Stupid White Men — was ever going to be read by the American public. HarperCollins, one of the major publishing houses in the world, was trying to decide whether the words I had written were now “too offensive” to a nation which had suddenly fallen in love with George W. Bush. By the morning of September 11, 2001, the HarperCollins printing presses, located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, had already printed 50,000 copies of an announced 100,000-copy first printing of my new book — and then the world, for all of us, came to a standstill. . .
[Later] I was informed that there were “problems” with Stupid White Men. I was told that, unless I re-wrote large sections of my book (sections mostly dealing with my harsh but funny criticisms of the W.), plus change the title and the cover — and then, after all that, reimburse the publisher of up to $100,000 out of my pocket (!) so this new version could be reprinted — then the powers-that-be might actually destroy the ENTIRE run of 50,000 copies that had already been printed! My book would be sent to the shredder and “pulped.” I would then have to wait for up to a year before I could take it to another publisher. In other words, the book would be toast.
I refused to rewrite a single word of my book. I was proud of everything I had written.
There’s lots more in the book that I wanted out in the public arena months ago: An open letter to Yassir Arafat on how to really win and stop the bloodshed; a report on a chance run-in I had with Jeb Bush two weeks before the 2000 election on a deserted street in Tallahassee; my exploration of the three times (that I know of) that George W. Bush has been arrested and charged with crimes by the police — it’s all there, and I saw no need to change a single thing.
But I was told that “the political climate has changed in America” and that my attacks on Bush and his cronies would not be met with open arms by a Bush-adoring public. . .
[Finally] “Stupid White Men” debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list this week, and at #1 on the Publisher’s Weekly nonfiction bestseller list for independent bookstores. It’s still #1 for all books on Amazon, and, my personal favorite for a good laugh, #4 on the bestseller list for the Wall Street Journal. By the fifth day of release, the book had gone into its 9th printing. More copies have been sold in one week than Downsize This sold in a whole year. Pundits and publishers are stunned. “But the president has an 80% approval rating!” There’s something going on here, and they don’t know what it is. . .
I am writing this from northern California, two weeks into the book tour, on a drive with my family to visit small towns like Ukiah and Arcata. Last night in Santa Rosa, at the local high school, they had a thousand people packed inside and another 500 out on the lawn who couldn’t get in. It’s like this in all the places I visit. Hundreds, thousands, turning out to discuss all the sorry excuses for the state of the nation. People have had it with keeping silent for the past 6 months. They resent having felt like if they chose to question what the government is up to or, God forbid, dissent, they would somehow be considered unpatriotic.
Let’s get one thing straight — this is what it means to be “unpatriotic:”
1. When you shred our constitution and eliminate our civil liberties, passing laws that make it illegal to encourage opposition to the government’s actions, THAT is un-American.
2. When you send our kids to go fight and die on a foreign land so that you can finally build a pipeline for your oil backers across that country, THAT is un-American.
3. When you use the dead of September 11 to try to get huge tax cuts passed that will only benefit your rich benefactors, THAT is un-American.
4. When you allow criminals who are stealing the pensions of workers and retirees to come in and hand-pick the head of the agency which is supposed to be regulating them, and then you place some of the criminals’ top brass in your administration to “serve” as the secretary of the army and White House counsel, and then these criminals turn out to be your number one financial backers — and their law firm turns out to be your #3 backer — and, in spite of all this you still haven’t resigned in disgrace, THAT is un-American. . .
Off to shadow the Cheney shadow government,
Michael Moore
Author, Filmmaker, Evil-doer
StupidWhiteMen@aol.com