When I saw Michael Moore walk on-stage to accept his Award for Best Documentary and denounce then-President Bush and the Invasion of Iraq, I, like many Americans, thought that he was out of line; that even though he had a right to speak that way, that certainly wasn’t the appropriate forum. I then proceeded to follow the pack in writing off his next film as nothing more than extremist liberal propoganda containing more fiction than fact. With a little bit more history behind us, we can all clearly see that Michael Moore was right...about pretty mucheverything; that a prophecy always looks fictitious to those that are unwilling or unable to comprehend it, but has any member of the reality-based community who bashed him at the time ever taken the time to apologize?
After Moore’s protest at the Oscars, I sought to personally discredit the film that had won him the award, and when Marilyn Manson took to the camera, I, like the rest of the God-fearing populace, stopped listening, denying myself the opportunity to be momentarily enlightened by the most unlikely of sages. I, like most Americans, viewed the unedited interview with Charlton Heston that Moore used to close out BFC as an assault. When Heston’s representatives finally disclosed to the nation, after the film’s release, that he was suffering from Prostate Cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease, I hopped right onto the "Michael Moore Exploits Alzheimer’s Victim" bandwagon, not wondering why his battle with Alzheimer’s only mattered when pertaining to this self-incriminating footage. I didn’t care about the fact that in the months leading up to that interview, Heston had been on what can only be described as a school-shootings tour. My compliance and complacency failed to ask several crucial questions. Why was all of a sudden wrong to roll a camera and ask someone (who had agreed to be questioned on camera) questions? How in the world could it be that Marilyn Manson was more at fault than those who promote gun ownership? Why did the NRA think that it was appropriate to send a clinically demented Hollywood spokesman to places like Columbine and Flint, just after there had been school-shootings, to promote firearms? Then, when he stole the show at the Oscars, I failed again, but in retrospect, it is embarrassingly easy to identify the appropriate inquiries. Why was George W. Bush a "fictitious president"? Why was he protesting the "fictitious" Invasion of Iraq that everybody else seemed to be adamant support of? Why was Michael Moore the only winner that night with the humility to bring his opponents on-stage with him?
I would later learn the answers to each one of these questions and more, but not until I took it upon myself to find out what the answers were. Had I not simply taken cues from others, and from my individualistic instincts, I would have tried to understand where Michael Moore, Marilyn Manson, and Charlton Heston were all coming from, then stepped back, assessed each of their viewpoints, and decided for myself who was right and who was wrong. I would have seen the absence of logic behind blaming Marilyn Manson for Columbine; that it makes less sense than blaming FoxNews for Dr. Tiller’s murder, or J.D. Salinger for a slew of assassinations and assassination attempts (most of which can actually be traced back to the CIA’s covert MK-ULTRA program, but that’s a whole different confession). I would have seen Heston’s later-life work as nothing more than a cheap exploitation of tragedy, and most importantly, I would have seen Moore for the noble renegade documentarian that he was and is.
In a sea of extremist capitalism veiled as opportunism, one man has been consistently warning the masses how close we are to fascism, without overstating the case and slipping into Alex Jones territory, and that man is Michael Moore. It was also Mr. Moore that laid out everything now known about the Bush Administration’s unprecedented level of corruption and totalitarianism years before anyone else with any level of significant influence took notice. Now I know that Wolfowitz planned the Invasion of Iraq before 9/11, and that the Bush family is intimately connected to the Bin Laden family, but when Michael Moore proved it so in 2004, I called him a liar. So did a lot of other people. I would like to formally apologize on behalf of everyone who was once blind but now can see.
Mr. Moore, you were right; about everything. With that in mind, I, and my brethren, would like to humbly request that you let us redeem ourselves by never doubting your intentions again.
I tried to dislike Michael Moore. I wanted to know that what he was saying was nothing more than conjecture, and for a long time, I was successful in convincing myself that this was the case, just like I successfully convinced myself, with much help from the Catholic Church and mainstream media, that Sinead O’Connor was wrong on 10/03/92. Then I learned a vital lesson: that anyone can convince themselves of anything, but convincing myself that two plus two is five wouldn’t teach me a thing about mathematics. If I wanted the truth, I would have to find it myself, and the truth in this case is that Bowling for Columbine is one of the greatest documentaries ever made, and Michael Moore is probably the greatest documentarian that ever lived. This is what I learned, when I stopped listening to every single opinion in the world, including my own.