The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself, Part Deux

This is an excerpt from Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine movie:

It is our fear of the “other” and our denial of what we have done to the “other” that is the root cause of many of our current problems. For white Americans the “other” takes many forms: Native Americans, Black Americans, people from the Middle East, Mexicans, Cubans, the list goes on. America: Land of the free and the home of the brave? How free are we if we are fearful all of the time? How brave are we if we can't face our past?

The brave ones are the ones who don’t believe in some fairy tale version of America in which we are always saints and always right. In order to have a better future we need to know our past, accept it, and learn from it. Many mistakes were made that need to be rectified. If you don’t have a clue as to what I am talking about, may I suggest that you read A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

The cowards are the ones who accept the propaganda that America is always right, that the people we brutalize and kill somehow deserve it. That it makes their lives better somehow. Again, if you don’t know what I’m talking about just inform yourself of what we did to the Native Americans when Europeans first arrived here and move on from there. George W. Bush is just the latest in this long line of Americans who brutalize and kill in the name of improving the lives of those they are brutalizing and killing. It is morally wrong and makes no sense. And it always comes back to bite us in the ass, too. It takes courage to stand up to this view of America, but it needs to be done. It is the only true way to fight terrorism.

On another note, I liked this part of what Robert W. Glidden has to say about Michael Moore in his Customer Review of Bowling For Columbine over at amazon.com:

Moore is often called an Anti-American, which is a term I think is overused and rarely appropriate. Osama Bin Laden is an Anti-American. Moore would not like to see America destroyed, he would like it to be a place with less violent deaths and discontent citizens. Moore doesn't hate America, he loves America. The free speech he's grown up with has given him the opportunity to write his books and make his movies. He is certainly anti-Bush, but why should that make someone anti-American? I'm sure plenty of conservatives were anti-Clinton or anti-Carter or anti-Kennedy, but I would never call them anti-Americans. Our real enemies are people who would destroy crowded buildings in NYC, not people who voted for Gore.

Yet, despite all this, the attacks on Moore's film are often totally vicious and off-base. A disturbing number of the reviews on this site, and many others, attack his weight more often than they attack the film. Yes, Moore is fat but so is Rush Limbaugh for God's sake.