Michael Moore: One Smart Capitalist

Jerry Zandstra of the Detroit Daily News is fed up with Michael Moore's hypocrisy. Every time he gets a chance to proclaim loudly his support for Marxism Moore manages to deflect attention from his own anti-working class actions as a wealthy capitalist. Zandstra writes:

What would you say to someone who made $50 million in an industry in which 90 percent of his fellow union members made less than $5,000 per year?

How about someone whose last project grossed over $220 million but who hired nonunion workers to save money? Unions should be up in arms. People across the country should be protesting outside this guy's house. Commentators like Rachel Maddow should be raining condemnation on his head in disgust over the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor in America.

He should be the left's poster boy for all that is wrong with our country. But what if the person who does such things is Michigan's own Michael Moore?

Moore has made himself infamous by making outrageous documentaries and ridiculous statements. In his latest tirades, he told GritTV that the wealthy's income should be nationalized. All property, income and wealth should be thought of as belonging to "the people," he said, rather than any one person. . . .

The state of Wisconsin, for example, isn't broke, Moore says. The wealth is just congealed in the hands of a few and the state needs to take it from them on behalf of the people.

Of course, this is nothing new. Karl Marx believed the same and so have other purveyors of communism for decades.

What's new about Moore is the sheer hypocrisy of his statements.

Having just completed renovations on a multimillion-dollar vacation home in Torch Lake, Moore showed up in Wisconsin telling union workers he stands in solidarity with them. He then appeared on Maddow's show spewing trumped-up anger against rich people, saying that they need to be handcuffed and taken to jail. He even brought handcuffs as a prop, in case we weren't getting the message. . . .

We could argue the economics and constitutionality of his demands if not for this simple fact: Moore's personal wealth puts him at the top of the heap in the United States. What's worse is that he has made his $50 million by taking advantage of tragedies. In his 1989 documentary, "Roger and Me," he describes the economic pain felt by 30,000 General Motors employees who lost their jobs, positioning himself as the champion of the little guy. In theatrical box office alone, the film earned $7.7 million, with millions more from DVD and other sales. Not a blockbuster, but a decent enough start.

In his 2002 documentary, "Bowling for Columbine," Moore focused on the devastating violence unleashed in a Colorado school in 1999 as a means of examining violence in general in the United States. It brought him international attention and won numerous awards. His star began to rise, as did the balance in his checkbook. "Bowling for Columbine" made $58 million in theaters and tens of millions more in ancillary sales.

Moore's ship really came in with the terrorist attacks on 9/11. His 2004 film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," took a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush and the war on terrorism. It turns out that rich people were behind it all. Big surprise. The movie became the highest-grossing documentary of all time, earning more than $220 million.

Read it all here. Moore is a capitalist but likes to pretend that he is a working class stiff who is only concerned about the little guy. He wants the government to take away your money but he isn't giving his up voluntarily. If you want to know why he really is so anti George Bush, the reason is as simple as plain old greed. As the greedy socialist, he is the poster boy for hypocrisy. In reality, he is just a cunning capitalist playing the suckers for all their worth.