Last letter from Michael Moore - announcing a new blog - and follow up on his movie

[Mira]

I've been out
and when I came back I found this in my inbox and I cannot find that it has been posted, so if it has I apologize because I tried

ask me where I was

now that you did

let me tell you I was in the theatre, this time without friends, by myself, and MAKING friends in the theatre, watching his movie for the second time in 5 days.

=====================================

This week, the new 'Mike & Friends Blog' section will be added to MichaelMoore.com. In additional to my blog, I have asked a few people, like Rep. Marcy Kaptur (the Democrat from Toledo who has deservedly become the star of my movie!) and Leah Fried (who helped organize the sit-down strike at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago), to blog here on my site. Here's a sneak peek of my first blog post. Enjoy! -- MM

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

Pilots on Food Stamps
By Michael Moore

We're on the descent from 20,000 feet in the air when the flight attendant leans over the elderly woman next to me and taps me on the shoulder.

"I'm listening to Lady Gaga," I say as I remove just one of the ear buds. I know not this Lady Gaga, but her performance last week on SNL was fascinating.

"The pilots would like to see you in the cockpit when we land," she says with a southern drawl.

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No. They have something to show you." (The last time an employee of an airline wanted to show me something it was her written reprimand for eating an in-flight meal without paying for it. "Yes," she said, "we have to pay for our own meals on board now.")

The plane landed and I stepped into the cockpit. "Read this," the first officer said. He handed me a letter from the airline to him. It was headlined "LETTER OF CONCERN." It seems this poor fellow had taken three sick days in the past year. The letter was a warning not to take another one -- or else.

"Great," I said. "Just what I want -- you coming to work sick, flying me up in the air and asking to borrow the barf bag from my seatback pocket."

He then showed me his pay stub. He took home $405 this week. My life was completely and totally in his hands for the past hour and he's paid less than the kid who delivers my pizza.

I told the guys that I have a whole section in my new movie about how pilots are treated (using pilots as only one example of how people's wages have been slashed and the middle class decimated). In the movie I interview a pilot for a major airline who made $17,000 last year. For four months he was eligible -- and received -- food stamps. Another pilot in the film has a second job as a dog walker.

"I have a second job!," the two pilots said in unison. One is a substitute teacher. The other works in a coffee shop. You know, maybe it's just me, but the two occupations whose workers shouldn't be humpin' a second job are brain surgeons and airline pilots. Call me crazy.

I told them about how Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger (the pilot who safely landed the jet in the Hudson River) had testified in Congress that no pilot he knows wants any of their children to become a pilot. Pilots, he said, are completely demoralized. He spoke of how his pay has been cut 40% and his own pension eliminated. Most of the TV news didn't cover his remarks and the congressmen quickly forgot them. They just wanted him to play the role of "HERO," but he was on a more important mission. He's in my movie.

"I hadn't heard anywhere that this stuff about the airlines is in this new movie," the pilot said.

"No, you wouldn't," I replied. "The press likes to talk about me, not the movie."

And it's true. I've been surprised (and slightly annoyed) that, with all that's been written and talked about "Capitalism: A Love Story," very little attention has been paid the mind-blowing stuff in the film: pilots on food stamps, companies secretly taking out life insurance policies on employees and hoping they die young so the company can collect, judges getting kickbacks from the private prison industry for sending innocent people (kids) to be locked up. The profit motive -- it's a killer.

Especially when your pilot started his day at 6am working at the local Starbucks.


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[timeforpeace]

1. Competition for those internet advertising dollars.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Un-fucking-believeable. Pilots make less than I do on Soc. Sec.!!!

And I don't make much, but I don't have to pay taxes on it, or deducts. Or support a family on it.
Or drive to work.

Yet another reason to not fly, as if I needed one more.

thanks for posting, Mira. K&R

[Ian David]

3. Yeah, but pilots get laid more. n/t

[valerief]

4. That's one reason why I won't fly anymore. I don't want a tired pilot. nt

[Mira]

5. Tired - or drunk - or hung over. So sad. N/T

[Luminous Animal]

6. I love Mike's politics but fuck him and his blog.

Mike used to have a political discussion board. It was the wild wild west and a hilarious community. In one fell swoop, he closed it. No notice, no warning (imagine if DU were shut down one day and that was that... no explanation, no nothing).

In the beginning, he'd post now and again, but pretty much we existed on his site and under his radar. There was little moderating and every time Mike wrote a book or made a movie we were invaded by people waging tomfuckery and we fought, brilliantly, tooth and nail against attacks from the NRA and white supremacists. We squashed the invaders with intelligence but mostly with our sense of humor. This went on for years without Mike having a clue what was going on his dime. We celebrated births, marriages, and sadly, deaths.

After "Bowling for Columbine" the board exploded. Every wingnut asshole in the U.S. decided to give MM's board a visit and Mike, himself, decided to log in and comment. The vitriol from our new members towards Mike at was vicious, and he was astounded, but us old regulars emailed him and his board administrator (RIP Ray) assured him that we, the community, could handle it. We were old and wise veterans and, without a doubt, could defeat the attackers.

I don't know whether or not Mike read our emails or listened to Ray, but I do know that Mike closed the board within 48 hours of his appearance.


In one of Mike's books, he shows a picture of the McVey's (et. al.) Oklahoma bombing juxtaposed next to empty and crumbling factories. In that chapter, he bemoans the destruction of communities and the toll that such actions exact on those communities. I wrote to Mike and told him that closing the board destroyed a community as vibrant and connected as any real life community and that his actions were no less immoral than that of GM. Through a conduit, someone named Dave, we offered moderation, concessions, anything to keep the community together but we were totally ignored or rebuffed... we never really ever got an answer and a community of thousands was obliterated.

So fuck Michael Moore and his blog. He didn't have any trust in the wisdom and power of people.

[LTR]

7. So, you're pissed off at Moore for shutting down his message board?

:wtf:

That's crazy.

Ever think that he shut it down because a) it was on his site, with his name on it; and b) a 'wild west' message board didn't exactly give him a positive image?

I've experienced similar things like you described. I know of one guy who shut down his board because he was threatened with libel suits. I certainly didn't blame him.

Remember, you guys may have been having fun in your little world, but he's the guy held responsible for what goes on in the nut house.

BTW: He hardly ever responds to emails. In fact, his email box is usually full. I've sent him emails before (his AOL box) and they bounced back.

[orleans]

8. in the past every email i sent him bounced back.

i stopped bothering.

[Luminous Animal]

10. Before Bowling for Columbine, it was very easy to communicate with him.

Believe it or not. I am still one of Mike's biggest fan. He is an important voice and I am paying for my teenage daughter and 14 of her friends to see "Capitalism".


I have to say that if the DUers were faced with a similar situation, they'd want the opportunity to take over the institution or reorganize under new management. It would be difficult to imagine logging in one morning with the site off-line, never to return.

[Luminous Animal]

9. I am pissed off at him for destroying a community with one fell swoop

without giving us a chance to reorganize. The same exact behavior that he chastised corporate America for engaging in, in both his movies and his books. We had a conduit to Mike... his web guy who communicated our concerns. We proposed being independent of his website but requested a link... it was refused.

His web guy (I believe his name was Dave) negotiated between Mike and several of us who were trying to keep the community intact but, in the end, we were just little guys up against a guy who wielded autocratic and undemocratic power.