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Re: Michael Moore Responds to All This Crap




todd:
>First, I want to publicly apologize for my error in sending a private personal
>attack to the list.

don't sweat it. 'everybody' does that. nice that you publicly apologize but
i think i feel from where you come. uh, you know what i mean.

>For those who don't know, Chris and I have had some good conversations irl,

yes, indeedy. i testify.
>in which I've said basically the same to his face,

you have?

>and we've argued loudly about some of this stuff before.

we have? we gotta get together soon so you can refresh my memory. i think
maybe you think you're arguing with me about like alec does.

>Anyway, sorry.

'salright.

>So I hear that Chris said something about me,

ahaha. must be that fauxne tree again.

>so I go skimming through some of his stuff
>(usually I skip any 3.2.3. post longer than one screen)

stop reading then.

hey, i got an idea. let's all declare appropriate list behavior and then
post our killfiles.

>and still can't find it.

um, i said it would be really hilarious to me if you turned out to be the
source of the "michael moore" hoax. and some other stuff. i'm always talking
about you, todd. and i said some other stuff more obscurely so as not to appear
too glib as was my whim at that particular time.

>Well, ok, I find this:

glad to be of service.

>I'm not as glib as Chris in denying the existence of something that might be
>called an "authentic" left.

sometimes i am glib in order to be brief. i could go on for more than one
screen, and have, about those who claim to have the clues for those who don't.
when one hears something brief with which one does not agree, that something
may appear glib, aye.

>Charles Kernaghan and the National Labor Committe
>would seem to qualify, imho,

see, and we're different like that while having like intentions. i consider
the nlc a pro-workerist organization. i consider workerism just as much of a
problem, if not more, than anything else.

i have problems with everything i like, but i've listed some things i've
liked in the past. and some things i find somewhat admirable now would be
people who drop-out for full-time for well-placed monkey-wrenching,
race-traitor direct action, food projects, etc.. i just don't have any
hope of any -real- effect through such work. i've been through the
anarcho-syndicalist route and i'm no longer a fan of even loose
organization. that's just me.

>but it's not like I'm really all that keen on the notion of "authenticity".
>It gets in the way more than it helps, in music and in  politics.

see, i'm not -keen- on it either. i talk about it because i -dont- like it's
constant appearance, as cred, as appropriateness, as real, as legitimate,
as validity, as reasonable, as democratic, as genuine, as sincere, as
correct, as informed, as authorized, as whatever. someone is always claiming
to represent the truth for us, speaking for us to say they have the clues and
we dont. someone is always using that claim to insist someone else or another
should shut up. i remember this came up with us long ago about country music.
there were those who wanted to insist that they were the real country, not
that other stuff.

>Whatever. He's an "oaf", and yet he's rehashing the Situationists.

oaf-ish-. oaf-ish- is the word i used.

girly is not a girl. blissful is not bliss. oafish is not an oaf.

and anybody who spends enough time around me know oafish is my -preferred-
brand of humor, which i don't feel is particularly any redeeming factor
in my favor. (more a testament to fighting something from afar. my views
on humor are well known. i think i gravitate towards stupid humor because
that flavor most seems to rob humor of its concealed violence). i just
don't represent oafishness as any real answer of leftism or attempt to
accelerate that as a claim to an answer through dominating modes of
dissemination (network tv, shelf-space for hire bestseller book deals)
and private capital accumulation.

and yes, he's rehasing situationism just like adbusters.

>Were the Situationists oafs, then, too?

their stated intent was certainly to be oafish. for once, i'd say someone
fairly well succeeded.

so maybe there's a case that moore isn't rehashing situationism if the rumor
that it's not his intent to be an entertainer is true. we won't know. we can
only deal with the effect that his text produces a reaction of entertainment.

>Btw, one of your shorter posts seemed to imply that because the Situationists
>had already tried the pranking thing, Moore was irrelevant.

private mail gone awry. um, that moore is redundant of failed attempts was my
intent. please pardon if lost in the translation.

>This seems to me to be extraordinarily silly, and, if taken to its
>logical conclusion, an argument for abandoning the teaching of history.

well, i'm sure it does seem extraordinarily silly (and thank you! that's
high praise in my book!) if taken to your own extreme and declared a logical
conclusion.

it is an argument against representing a repeat of failed history as a leftist
solution. few peeps have talked as much about situationism in an allegedly
historical sense here as me except those who represented the sex pistols
as indicative of some triumph of situationist strategy as a sound
philosophical grounding. ha. talk about oafish. apparently, our culture
believes its own presses.

>Moore's approach gets attention, and has the potential to reach people who
>(gosh, imagine) have never heard of the Situationists.

gosh, imagine, we have their attention with a strategy, an ideology,
previously demonstrated on many attempts as a failure for change.

>Perhaps he can spark something new through encouraging irreverence.

ok, i deploy irreverence and i'm glib. he encourages irreverence and he's
sparking something 'new'.

um, is this, i'm asking, ok, is this because he's front and center 'doing
something'? is this because he picks 'appropriate targets' in the thinking
of some (i addressed targeting a few times before but they were in posts
of more than a few screen-fulls)?

is this because he's your idea of authentic and this -really is- important
to you after all?

he just doesn't represent an authentic ideology to me, maybe because i
don't believe such a thing exists, but i haven't heard anything to support
why i shouldn't let my voice be heard to that when voices to the contrary
are just as prominent. if you want to believe, or act as if, he's represents
an authentic ideology, go right ahead. but i'm not a dick for believing or
saying differently anymore than you are for thinking differently on this than
me.

>I just think you're being willfully ignorant if you
>choose to ignore the context of This Country Right Now when looking at the
>value of someone like Moore.

then we have the same opinion of each other on this. i think if we feel,
as a consensus, that prankster entertainment  will dislodge the entrenched
context of this country, -this culture-, right now, then i think we are
being willfully ignorant that prankster entertainment -is- the context
of this country right now. o, concerned about problems are we, o authentic
left? well heckfire, where's your sense of humor? let's just laugh it off.
why, just look at those bungling keystone republicans. easy targets for
us righteously smug leftists who just happen to buy lotsa disposable plastic
platters at locally owned stores and suck down argentinian beef at locally
owned burrito stands.

see, our disagreement is somewhat over an authenticity i feel powerless to
change. i feel we are the enemy. us consumers of prankster books and zines.
i -feel-, dunno, but feel -we-, royal -we-, our consensus of what we
construct as legitimately consumable, is the appropriate target. all our
best information, education, and most articulate strategies don't seem
capable of saving us or anything from our own entertaining distractions,
because together, the sum of our chosen roles, is impotent against our
condition. for all our attempts at power, we, as would-be wannabe leftists,
still are powerless. power is ineffective as a tool against power. it
simply replaces itself. former indie-film producers, that-in-itself a platform
of privilege, accelerate to the next level, become tv producers. we make
subtle distinctions of choice that are yet the same of what we were trying
to distinguish away from ourselves.

prolly why i don't feel much like talking about music most of the time.

>As far as attacking the person instead of the ideas, in your case, Chris, I
>think it's quite fair to examine the position from which you've been lobbing
>these ridiculously judgemental posts.

then again, i see you placing my intent where you would have it in order for
it to seems ridiculous and i think we think the same of each other as regards
ad hominem judgments.

it is his ideology, as demonstrated by his appearance at carolina, that i
originally attacked when you first accused me of again picking inappropriate
targets. my characterization of him as an entertainer and a profiteer are
in line with my beliefs about -what he represents- and indeed what he does.
as far as michael moore or "michael moore", i don't recall saying he sleeps
with goats. i reserve ad hominem attacks for those who wanna tell one to
shut up coz there's no discussion with shut ups.

it is a simple matter, however, to place your arguments as ad hominem, which
i don't care to do, as pointless as i feel this already is, and as much as
i love going on pointlessly for several screens, it would be pointless.
you've already apologized, i believe.

>As I read your (to me) insulting critiques of Moore and his place in pop
>culture/politics, it seems perfectly natural for me to ask simple questions
>about what you yourself are doing to make things better.
>I just don't see much ground where you're standing. I mean sinking.

as one by whom i've been entertained in that mode of pop culture (and what
is this context of this country right now if not pop culture), i understand
that you would feel insulted by critique. if one equates critique of
ideological practice with critique of the person (the personal is political)
and feels that critique of the personal is malpolitical, then one has set
a mechanism for feeling insulted in motion. in other words, critique of
moore's practice is close to home for you and you are thin-skinned.

in which case, i'm -sorry- it hurts, but i don't sympathize that we should
neglect mutual examination of out patterns of life that create our situation.
indeed, if we are to call ourselves leftists, i think it is left-ism- that
we agree to examine within ourselves (our appropriated focus).

with that, yes, it is perfectly natural to ask simple questions about what
i am doing, or not, not that naturalism is any idea of merit.

which is more of an ornot. what i'm doing, that is. and yes, that does have
a sinking feeling. but not completely groundless. it comes from a personal
history. i'm not gonna sit here and list what i think i've attempted, as that
would seem to me some personal claim as to why i think i legitimately
attempted to be a leftist of any stripe, not to mention that there are people
involved in strategies still being played out that i feel bound not to
complicate by revealing what my part was in what they do. remember, the
strategy of danger was always at the intention of situationism. sometime we
could get together and i'll play you my recollections, which you may or may
not endorse. they satisfy me as an experience on which to base my conclusions
for myself.

and my conclusions are, unoriginally, that there are no actions of real
positive effect, only apparent effect. that indeed actions of apparent
effect have more concealed negative effect. that we are only kidding
ourselves about our ideologies, about what we think we -should- do.
i've talked about this in other posts that were more than a screen-full.
call this a post-ideological posture if you wish. most of what passes
for post-ideological these days seems neo-ideological to me. neoism
is just a scheme to sell records, zines, and paintings. neoism is
post-ideology that is just happy with itself, glad to be rid of guilt.
i don't share that conclusion.

i don't think this no-idea is particularly good, just is. i would wish for
an idea whose time has come, if i thought there were such a thing. but i
do know the harm in calling an idea whose time has past as a call to
arms. sir, i think it is you who would forget 'history'. adbusters wants
us to document grocery store shelf-space for hire and send it into them,
all the while selling itself from book store shelf-space for hire.

i'm not forgetting my own historiography. i've seen enough of power
to convince myself it cannot replaces itself without becoming the
power it replaces, nor can it set upon itself without replacing itself
with the power is opposes. now, it might be convenient to characterize
this as jealous of the powerful, but that perceived effect does not the
text to critique or the intent with which to judge me make.

anyway, suffice to say, i refrain from producing much of perceived
either cultural or political value, as i consider such production
more of the problem. as a human being, my condition is one of
consumer, and thus i intake many of the things that disturb me.
this is no apology. guilty. with regret. but apparently remorseless
as i have found no alternatives. about all i'm left with is to
talk, with the people around me, and those i've known, about what
went wrong. there are problems with that. that nostalgia alone
creates a subculture with its own apparent ideology, albeit low-level,
rendered less apparently harmful. and within that subculture, there
are any number, nay, the majority, the consensus, that nothing is
wrong with -our- culture, that we're all just playing our roles,
that we're having a real effect, that if we just keep on keeping
on we won't be continually digging ourselves deeper in the hole,
that voices to the contrary should just shut up, that disagreement
is inconveniently humorless.

>And yeah, it made me mad enough to lose my temper.

ok, i'd ask for clarification on what 'it' is that made you mad enough.
critique? perceived ad hominem attacks? my lack of a legitimate alternative?

>I apologize for that, too.

'salright. you know you can say what you want to me and i'll still be there
for ya. i'm not gonna go away any more just coz someone disagrees with me.

>I lose my self-control when I'm busy vomiting.

i can see sincerity as faux as ever.

>Cute.
>todd yawn

yeah, and your point is? you wanna be, what? entertained?
yes sir, here to serve.

3.2.3

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