Stupid White Men

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Stupid White Men is the third book by Michael Moore in which he takes a critical look at the administration of George W. Bush in particular and with the social situation in the USA in general. The full title is: Stupid White Men: And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation . For a long time it was a bestseller in German non-fiction book lists as well as in the USA itself, Great Britain and Ireland. In Germany it was number 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list for 40 weeks in 2003 .

The book was written and printed before September 11, 2001 (the first edition, 50,000 copies, left the print shop on September 10, 2001). However, it was withheld by the publisher (ReganBooks / HarperCollins Publishers) and only marketed a short time after December 1, 2001. On the evening of December 1, 2001, Michael Moore had read from the book - not yet available - in public. This caused so much fuss within a few days - although there was no press representative present - that the book was finally put into distribution and quickly reached number 1 in various best lists. The publisher had previously asked Michael Moore to rewrite a large part of the book and to defuse or delete many 'inappropriate' formulations. The copies already printed should be destroyed.

Some of the theses in the book are likely to have come true in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, faster than even the satire predicted. This includes in particular the restriction of civil rights through various laws, such as The USA PATRIOT Act .

content

Michael Moore deals with many controversial problem areas in US society in a humorous and satirical way: poor school education, bad - since mainly made for lobby companies - politics (many politicians are supervisory boards, bosses or the like in US-American companies), racism , lacking Environmental protection , wrong judgments and grievances in the judiciary etc. The book is accused of some factual inaccuracies.

A very American coup

The book first deals with the circumstances surrounding the election of George W. Bush as President of the United States. Moore tries to show that the Bush administration not only came into office questionably through the count, but also in the run-up to potential voters of the Democratic Party in Florida (whose governor was the brother of George W. Bush, Jeb Bush ) from exercising their right to vote were held. Based on this, or the lack of outrage over this fact, Moore argues that the USA is equivalent to a so-called banana republic in its democratic values . The links between practically all members of the government and the oil and arms industry serve to support this thesis. Moore finally asks the United Nations for military assistance and liberation.

Go kill the whites!

With reference to racial unrest that has already taken place , Moore recommends all his white compatriots to give up their privileges for the sake of their own survival, not to monopolize the prosperity of the country any further, and rather to give preference to those who have so far been neglected instead of just equal treatment put.

We are number one

In this chapter, the position of the USA as a world power is examined very critically and sometimes poked fun at in a very ironic way. But Moore does not let the rest of the world get away with it, especially the parties to the Middle East conflict , the states of ex- Yugoslavia , and the rulers of North Korea or Iran and Iraq are not spared from well-meaning advice to lay down their arms and themselves finally to behave as you learned from your mother.

Democrats - a hopeless case

In the chapter "Democrats - a hopeless case", Moore shows the amalgamations between Democrats and Republicans and the similarities in their policies. The Republicans, he claims, told the people their goals publicly, while the Democrats disguised themselves and made empty election promises that they failed to deliver.

A prayer for humanity

The chapter “Prayer for Humanity” is a sarcastic and ironic supplication to God (Yahweh) to send sicknesses and other plagues to politicians and other leading men in the world to inspire compassion and help for the disadvantaged.

Tallahassee Hi-Ho

It is learned that Moore, as campaign coordinator , supported Ralph Nader , the American Green Party's presidential candidate .

Trivia

Stupid white men - in German white stupid men or stupid whites - is not a random expression. This name has become common in the Anglo-American language area because it comes from the native American Indians, who used them because of the mutually incompatible cultural differences between whites (conquerors, missionaries, railway workers, industrialists, farmers, etc.) and them. Whites reacted with a lack of understanding of the rites and customs of the indigenous population, both during the conquests and development of the land in past centuries and today when trying to urbanize the rest of the Indian retreats. To the rites and customs of the Indians belong (t) z. B. singing about farmland to achieve better harvests, medicine, dealing with nature and the environment, preserving cultural knowledge about orally transmitted traditions and above all their mostly polytheistic forms of religion. Lack of understanding of the two cultural worlds stirs u. a. also because there are seldom terms and words purely linguistically that enable a translation - better still a semantic transfer - and with the English language hardly anything can be captured in the same way as the respective Indian language implies.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ISBN 0141012641 engl. Paperback edition, ISBN 3492045170 German paperback