By Makoto Hase
People can live in a country silently even when surrounded by lies and corrupt power. That's my feeling when I finished reading "Stupid White Men." I wanted to give up reading it many times because I was tired of its content. I felt distaste with the worldŐs power, the United States of America and the President of the United States, George W. Bush.
Stupid White Men, is a provocative book written by Michael Moore, who is a journalist, a director, and a TV producer. But the author is a white man himself. As such, he exposed a dark side of America and criticized many politicians, including the President, using their real names.
This book was published in 2001 after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and in a flash it became a best seller in America. Why is it successful? I will point out one reason. I don't know how much the contents are the truth, yet he was asked to eliminate parts which criticized the President by name before publication. The impression then, is that everything is true. Of course, Moore doesn't accept this demand. As a result of pushing these pressures aside, the leading media keep ignoring him, and there are no book reviews or critiques in popular media publications. And yet, it is evident that its popularity with Americans keeps it reigning on the best-seller list for a long time from its publication onward. It is successful because of Moore's effort to follow the truth as a journalist, his courage to publish his research openly, and because of his own character and writing talent .
Many issues concerning President Bush are raised in this book. It seemed that it began with the presidential election in 2000, but the first step of "suspicion about the election" started before the presidential race. The vice-chairperson of Bush's presidential election campaign and the Secretary of Florida, who was in a position to control the election, paid a certain data company to check the voter list in Florida. Then all the people who were considered former wrongdoers were erased from the list. Some people were erased because their date of birth was same as a serious criminal, or their social security number was similar. According to the state law of Florida, former serious criminals donŐt have voting rights. Unfortunately, many African-Americans' voting rights were divested by this state law. African-Americans in Florida are overwhelmingly advocates of the Democratic Party. Bush knew thousands of African-Americans couldn't come to the polls if former serious criminals names were cut from the voter list.
Even though I don't live in the U.S. and am not familiar with politics, I felt a credibility gap between what Bush says and does, which I can be seen from TV news or newspapers. After learning the truth from Moore, I feel surprised and angry. In Japan, we heap mountains of criticism on Japanese politicians. It reminds me of the mistrust we have of Japanese politicians. I think Bush is just pleased like a child at coming into the Presidency. And when he became president of the U.S., he involved the nation in his arbitrary decisions like a selfish autocrat. I feel sad because I remember people who lived under apartheid or under political pressure which we can see all over the world throughout history.
Finally, Moore published this book which reached the one-million seller mark in America. I guess Americans already know that the political world is always suspicious, so they are shocked at politics but enjoy it. That is one of America's attractions and the reason why few people rebel openly against society.