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| ‘Donahue’
for Oct. 28 |
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Guest: Michael Moore
PHIL DONAHUE, HOST: Good
evening and welcome to DONAHUE, live from the Showcase Cinema West
movie theater, the hometown premiere for Michael Moore’s new
movie, titled “Bowling for Columbine.” The film is receiving
incredible response. You already know that.
First documentary ever
accepted at Cannes film festival in 46 years. Those are all the
glitterati from the movie industry. This film knocked them out.
Thirteen-minute standing ovation from the audience in Cannes,
unanimously awarded the Cannes 55th anniversary Jury Prize award.
Written, directed and produced “The Big One,” you know
Michael’s past work, and “Roger and Me,” which became the
highest grossing documentary of all time.
The man who is responsible
for “Bowling for Columbine” also is the author of two “New
York Times” bestselling books, “Downsize This” and “Stupid
White Men.” Spent over seven months on “The New York Times”
bestseller’s list, much of that in the No. 1 position.
And now I want you to take
just a couple of-take a look at this clip from the movie. Watch
this, “Bowling for Columbine”.”
(BEGIN VIDEO)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, boys
and girls. Ready to get started?
MARILYN MANSON, SHOCK ROCKER:
Who’s bigger, the president or Marilyn Manson?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What you
don’t know may kill you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don’t
talk to me about it.
JAMES NICHOLS, TERRY
NICHOLS’ BROTHER: You say anything to me, I’ll shoot you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONAHUE: Here’s your man,
Flint, Michigan’s own Michael Moore! Right here.
(APPLAUSE)
MICHAEL MOORE, FILMMAKER:
Thank you.
DONAHUE: They’re crazy
about you.
MOORE: Thank you. Thank you
very much.
DONAHUE: Michael, well, you
still have a book on “The New York Times” bestseller list, I
should make that clear. And now here you are with one of the most
honored cinematic features of expression ever to happen at Cannes.
And believe me, they do you no favors at the Cannes Film Festival.
So they quite literally
knocked out the judges, everybody in attendance. You’ll tell us
what moved you to create “Bowling for Columbine.” And, if
you’ve been living in a cave for a long time, you may not know
that Harris and Klebold, the shooters in the Columbine massacre,
in Littleton, Colorado, went bowling the morning of the shooting.
Michael, why did you do this
film?
MOORE: Well, I think like
most Americans, I was very affected by Columbine the day it
happened. And in the weeks after it, I started thinking about how
this issue has affected me all my life. It’s the country I live
in, the violence and everything.
I thought, you know, we
should really do something about this. So I just got my friends
together and we were making our TV show. We approached this
Canadian production company to see if they’d give us they money.
And they gave the money and we were off making the movie.
DONAHUE: And you actually
spent-did you spend two years putting this together?
MOORE: Almost three years.
DONAHUE: Michael, let me
understand, this is such a thoughtful piece of work. And you
can’t come away. These people have just seen this film. So
we’ll get their input in just a moment.
You see America’s gun
culture. You believe this is a violent culture as well. I mean,
guns and everything else. This is a violent culture. Would you
sign off on that?
MOORE: Yes. I believe our
mentality as Americans is to shoot first and ask questions later.
We just, we go for the gun in a way that no other country does. We
just-we somehow believe we have some sense of entitlement or some
manifest destiny, or I don’t know what it is.
Let’s just go for that gun,
and that’s how we’re going to resolve our disputes. And I
don’t mean that just on a personal level, which is where a lot
of the-obviously, the homicides come from. I mean that on a
political level and on a global level.
Because, just what we’re
dealing with right now with Iraq. The guy who’s sitting in the
Oval Office tonight. He wants to bomb. We don’t need any more
inspections, let’s just bomb them and we’ll find out later if
they have the weapons. That’s the American way. I don’t like
that.
I’m an American. I paid for
those bombs. And I want it stopped. I want that stopped.
DONAHUE: And that’s the
point you’re making in this movie, as you talk to-you went to
talk to people at Lockheed Martin, which has a large post in
Littleton.
MOORE: They’re the largest
private employer in Littleton, and also the world’s largest
weapons maker. And it was just one of those weird ironies, that
the company that is set up to make weapons of mass destruction is
based in part in this town that had this horrible mass destruction
at their high school.
And I thought that was worth
looking at, to think about how all these little threads of
violence just weave into our society, sort of this fabric is
created. And it doesn’t mean because Lockheed’s there,
that’s why those kids did that.
I’m asking the people of
this country, especially people who see this movie, to think, you
know, maybe we should be behaving a little differently. Maybe we
shouldn’t be spending so much of our tax dollars on Lockheed
Martin, for instance.
DONAHUE: Right. The bullets
were purchased at Kmart, that killed those kids at Columbine.
MOORE: Many of them, yes.
DONAHUE: Incidentally, you
did something in this film that I think we should do more often.
You had the kid pull up his shirt and show the holes where he had
been shot. This is one of the victims that survived the Columbine
massacre.
MOORE: That’s right, yes.
DONAHUE: So, show the pain.
See the scars. The kid had, what did he have in his back? Three or
four or five holes?
MOORE: He had, like, nine
different bullet holes, I believe. I believe that every human
being has a conscience, even corporate executives.
(LAUGHTER)
MOORE: They’re human
beings. Somewhere deep down in there, you know, at one time they
were good. And I’ve always, I’ve had this weird kind of
optimistic belief that, if you appeal to their conscience, if I
take the kids there-one of them’s paralyzed in a wheelchair-show
this to the corporate executives.
I’m hoping against hope
that they will not go away and say, well, what did we have to do
with this? We just put the bullets on the shelves. You know, the
good German. I just drove the train. I had nothing to do with
this.
Well, we all have something
to do with it. And if you put the bullets on the shelves and
you’re selling them to teenagers, you do have a responsibility
for it. And I want you to understand that and I want you to stop
selling this ammunition. And I was completely stunned when, 24
hours later, they cried uncle and said, OK. That’s what we’ll
do.
DONAHUE: You’re a member of
the NRA and you went to Kmart and you actually moved them to stop
selling the ammunition, as we see on your film.
MOORE: Yes.
DONAHUE: And that holds
today?
MOORE: Yes, for handguns and
for assault weapons. Hunting stuff, I don’t care. They’re
still selling that. There’s nothing against hunters here. I’m
all for hunting.
DONAHUE: You’re talking
about long guns.
MOORE: Yes, I’m talking
about stopping the selling of ammunition for weapons that are
specifically designed to kill human beings.
DONAHUE: And you see that as
pistols, handguns.
MOORE: Handguns or weapons
where you can fire multiple rounds at a time. You don’t need to
essentially spray the woods to get your deer. If you do, you
should be, you know, doing needle point or some other sport.
DONAHUE: OK, so let’s
understand. You’d like a ban on the sale of handguns.
MOORE: Yes. I believe that we
don’t need handguns.
DONAHUE: And a ban on the
sale of brrr! That kind of gun.
MOORE: Anything that fires
multiple rounds like that, absolutely.
DONAHUE: Which a significant
number of cities and various areas of our nation actually do now.
MOORE: That’s right. When I
moved to New York City a decade ago, there were 2,100 murders that
year. New York then enacted very strong gun laws. You cannot
really-you can’t buy a gun in New York City. Last year there
were 600 and some murders, down from 2,100. This will reduce a lot
of it. But it’s not the full solution.
And that’s why I agree with
the NRA in part, when they say guns don’t kill people, people
kill people. Because it really is the people. But I’d like to
define people the as-you know, I’d like to say guns don’t kill
people, Americans kill people. Because I think that’s what’s
really at the core of this.
And we need ask ourselves,
why do we, as Americans, do this? And the French don’t do it,
the Germans don’t do it, the Canadians don’t do it. They’re
not any better than us. They’re not any less violent as a
people. They’re humans, they have the same responses as we have.
Why don’t they go for the gun and kill at the rate that we do?
DONAHUE: We are in Flint,
Michigan with Michael Moore. This is his hometown. “Bowling for
Columbine” is at a movie theater near you, and we’ll be back
in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLTON HESTON, PRESIDENT,
NRA: From my cold, dead hands.
MOORE: Just 10 days after the
Columbine killings, despite the pleas of a community in mourning,
Charlton Heston came to Denver and held a large, pro-gun rally for
the National Rifle Association.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONAHUE: That’s from
Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine,” a movie that also
has Michael visiting the home and being welcomed into the home of
Charlton Heston. You’ve got to see this film.
May I just review, Michael,
here are gun deaths in a year. We hear this all the time, but it
just-Germany, 381, France, 255 — this is one year. Canada, 165
deaths, United Kingdom, 68, Australia, 65, Japan, 39. The United
States of America, 11,127.
I mean, what will shame us?
Yet you’re saying that this is not, as you would say, not a gun
control movie. Is that so?
MOORE: Right. Because
honestly, I don’t think, ultimately, getting rid of the guns
will be the answer. I think if we got rid of all our guns in the
U.S., we would still have the psyche problem-the problem that says
we have a right to resolve our disputes through violence. That’s
what separates us from these other countries.
All those countries you just
mentioned, Phil, have all banned the death penalty. They believe
it’s immoral to execute other human beings. There are so many
other things you could go through and point out, about how they
structure their societies.
I mean, think about Japan,
first of all. One-hundred-and-twenty million people, 39 gun
murders a year. That’s almost unfathomable to us. I mean, we
can’t even imagine-that would be like us having 89 gun murders a
year in the entire country.
But they work it out
differently. You know, the Canadians, they believe that if you get
sick, you should have the right to a doctor. They believe if you
lose your job, you have a right to get help.
If you were poor in Canada,
or in these other countries, the majority of the country wants to
embrace you. They want to help you. What we want to do is, we want
to beat up on the poor.
We want to say, you’re
poor? We’re going to make you suffer even more. And I think that
that leads to a lot of violence, especially in our inner cities,
because you’ve got these state acts of what I call
state-sponsored terrorism and violence against our own people:
Welfare to Work, et cetera, et cetera. It’s all...
(APPLAUSE)
DONAHUE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
QUESTION: First of all, I’d
like to ask Mr. Moore-well, say to you, Mr. Moore, thank you from
Beecher school district, for being there for us. I’d like to ask
anyone, what will it take to bring the community together besides
the violence? Because it seems like we do not come together until
we have violence.
DONAHUE: Forgive me just a
second, and we’ll talk about this in a moment. A 6-year-old
child was killed by a 6-year-old child using a handgun in the city
of Flint. More on that later. Please, Michael.
MOORE: Well, I think-this
occurred in the Beecher school district. It sits on the border of
the city limits of Flint. And this is a district where 87 percent
of the kids live below the federal poverty level — 87 percent.
That right there should just shame all of us. It’s a crime that
that is allowed to exist, in the wealthiest country on this
planet, that we would let this get to this point.
And it’s black and white in
Beecher. It’s where sort of-it’s the garbage dump of our
county, where poor whites and poor blacks are forced to live,
because they can’t afford the housing elsewhere, because they
can’t get jobs, real jobs, anywhere in this area. And unless
that stops, we’re going to continue to have this kind of
violence.
I don’t think any of us, as
saddened as we were by the Buell shooting, were truly shocked by
it, were we? We weren’t completely shocked. We knew that
eventually it would get this bad. And we fear that it will get
even worse.
DONAHUE: We’re in Flint,
Michigan with Michael Moore, the man responsible for the film,
“Bowling for Columbine.” And we’ll be back in just a moment.
(APPLAUSE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOORE: If you turn on the
evening news, America still seems like a pretty scary place.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he
dangerous? What’s he up to?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are
you trying to pull, man?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why are
people scared?
MOORE: Remember all the Y2K
scares?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:
There’s going to be mass chaos and confusion.
MOORE: Or how about those
killer bees that were going to attack America?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We’re
almost certain they’ll arrive this year.
MOORE: The bees never came.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOORE: Do you know that the
day that Columbine happened, the United States dropped more bombs
on Kosovo than any other time during that war?
MANSON: I do know that. And I
think that that’s really ironic, you know, that nobody said,
well, maybe the president had an influence on this violent
behavior. No, because that’s not the way the media wants to take
it and spin it and turn it into fear.
But then you’re watching
television. You’re watching the news. You’re being pumped full
of fear. There are floods, there’s AIDS, there’s murder. Cut
to commercial. Buy the Acura, buy the Colgate. If you have bad
breath, they’re not going to talk to you. If you have pimples,
the girl’s not going to [Audio Deleted] you.
And it’s just this-it’s a
campaign of fear and consumption. And that’s what I think it’s
all based on, is the whole idea that, keep everyone afraid and
they’ll consume.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONAHUE: Well, the spiel from
your movie, Michael Moore —- we should say that we’re in
Flint, Michigan, home of Michael Moore, for the premiere of this
movie, from which this Marilyn Manson interview was taken.
You asked him, what would you
say if you had a chance? What would you say to the kids from
Columbine today? And he said?
MOORE: He said, I wouldn’t
say anything. I’d listen to them, and that’s what nobody did.
I thought that was one of the most intelligent things said in the
film.
DONAHUE: Yes, sir?
QUESTION: I’m a student at
Beecher High School. I was wondering, I had a question for Mike.
In the scene that you showed that you interviewed and you followed
along the little boy’s mother, I was wondering why didn’t you
follow along the Columbine students’ mother? Why didn’t we
hear from them? That’s what I want to know.
MOORE: You may be confusing
the little boy’s mother with the principal of the school. That
was the school’s principal with whom you were speaking.
MOORE: Yes, that was the...
QUESTION: Also the mother,
she was also in...
MOORE: Do you mean her
circumstances?
DONAHUE: Oh, I see what
he’s saying.
MOORE: The mother of the
little boy who did the shooting was forced into Michigan’s
Welfare to Work program.
DONAHUE: Twenty seconds, I
want this in. This woman had to go back to work because they took
her house money away.
MOORE: Right. She was being
evicted. She had to place her son and daughter at her brother’s
house. That’s where the kid found the gun. Why wasn’t the
mother there? Because the state of Michigan wanted her to pay back
her food stamps and Medicare. So they had her on an 80-mile round
trip every day to pay back the state.
DONAHUE: We’ll be back with
Michael Moore in just a moment.
MOORE: It’s wrong.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DONAHUE: More with filmmaker
Michael Moore from his home town of Flint, Michigan, the place
where the movie is premiering, titled “Bowling for Columbine.”
We’ll talk with Michael Moore more after the news from MSNBC.
(NEWS BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: Genesee County
911.
TEACHER: I have a student at
Buell School that has been downed. I need an ambulance
immediately.
911 OPERATOR: Where is the
child that’s been shot?
TEACHER: Right here, on the
floor of my class. Oh, God, please!
She’s getting white!
MOORE (voice-over): Back in
my home town, the 6-year-old first grade boy at Buell Elementary
had found a gun at his uncle’s house, where he was staying
because his mother was being evicted. He brought the gun to school
and shot another first grader, 6-year-old Kayla Roland (ph). With
one bullet that passed through her body, she fell to the floor and
lay there dying.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONAHUE: You make the point
in this film, Michael, that this young-
the young boy who shot the
little girl whose picture we have out there-
hold that up so our cameras
can find you. This beautiful child will never
it’s just-it’s-this
is beyond sad. Her mother was moved off Welfare. This was the
Clinton ending welfare as we know it. And one of the things she
had to do was so-called farm her children out to relatives because
she had to go to work. Tell us.
MOORE: And she was being
evicted from her home. And that’s in spite of the fact that she
had two minimum-wage jobs. Two minimum wage jobs is not-at $5.15
an hour is not enough to pay even the basic bills these days. And
so-so she doesn’t want to take the kids out of school. She puts
them with her brother. Her brother not necessarily the best guy to
put the kids with, but it’s your brother. You’re thinking,
Well, OK. But the child finds a gun there.
And why isn’t the mother
there? Because the mother is on a state bus to go to down to one
of the richest areas in America, suburban Detroit, Auburn Hills,
to work for $5.15 an hour in two different jobs in the mall, one
of them in Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Grill. And then
she’s back, you know, at 10:00 or 11:00 at night. Doesn’t see
the kids.
Is that the society that we
want, where we pull mothers out of a home, where they’re not
there with the little kids?
DONAHUE: Right.
MOORE: You know that-I mean,
we have to share in the responsibility for the results of these
policies.
DONAHUE: Right.
MOORE: We can’t just sit
back and say, Well, you know, she should have done her job. Done
what job, when she’s being forced by the state to be gone for 14
hours a day? That’s...
DONAHUE: It was at her
brother’s house...
MOORE: Yes.
DONAHUE: ... that the
6-year-old boy...
MOORE: Yes.
DONAHUE: ... got the gun that
he took to school and shot this child.
MOORE: Right.
DONAHUE: And this was a woman
who was not able to oversee her own children because of the
Clinton Welfare reform.
Here’s the president of the
United States announcing that reform. I believe this is his first
term.
MOORE: Which one? The elected
president, right?
(LAUGHTER)
DONAHUE: Yes. President
Clinton.
MOORE: All right.
DONAHUE: Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES: From now on, our nation’s answer to the
problems of poverty will no longer be a never-ending cycle of
Welfare. It will be the dignity, the power and the ethic of work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONAHUE: Yes. If you can get
it.
MOORE: Well, this-I’ll tell
you, that’s just the saddest-you know what’s so sad about
Clinton? Here’s a guy who came from the working class, raised by
much of his childhood by a single mother. The fact that he forgot
where he came from-truly one of the most tragic presidents we’ve
had in a long time.
DONAHUE: You wanted to say?
Yes, ma’am?
QUESTION: I’d like to know
what made you go to Columbine to do this documentary?
MOORE: I’m-in this film,
I’m trying to show that many of the policies that are set up,
for instance, by the state of Michigan or whatever, create a very
dangerous situation. You know, if we lived in a society that said
our first goal was employment at a livable wage for everyone, if
the person living next door to you-if that person’s making
$40,000 a year, what’s the chance they’re going to come in and
steal your TV or harm you on the street? Absolutely none.
And we should-this is what we
should all push for. Republicans, Democrats, liberal,
conservative, you’re all better off-we’re all better off if
everybody’s working and earning a decent wage. You’re going to
have so many fewer problems and much less violence.
(APPLAUSE)
DONAHUE: Is there anybody in
America that hasn’t had their picture taken as a child on top of
a pony? I’d be happy to show you little Phillie’s picture on
top of the pony. But I had-I had-I want-just wanted to make the
point. I had guns on, on top of that pony. And I didn’t just go
“Bang.” I went-are we so different? Eleven thousand murders
and less than 200 in Canada? The only thing separating us from
Canada is an imaginary line. So...
MOORE: Because those Canadian
kids are riding the little pony, firing their little guns, too.
And they’re watching violent movies and they’re listening to
Marilyn Manson, they’re doing all those things, but they don’t
kill each other because they’re brought up from a very early age
to believe that they’re all in the same boat, that they have a
collective responsibility toward each other, not every man for
yourself. You know, “Me, me, me, me.” That’s the American
way. That’s what’s got to stop.
DONAHUE: Yes, sir? You wanted
to ask? I’m going to just give you this right here. Go right
ahead.
QUESTION: I think one point
that hasn’t been brought up here today that was brought up in
the movie-it’s a great point-that even though crime in this
country has gone and has declined, the media is sensationalizing
it.
MOORE: Yes.
QUESTION: The coverage of
murders has gone up 600 percent, which I learned from your film...
MOORE: Right.
QUESTION: That’s tragic...
MOORE: While the murder rate
is down 20 percent.
QUESTION: While the murder
rate is down 20 percent. That’s tragic.
MOORE: Coverage of it up 600.
Why are they doing that?
QUESTION: They’re doing it
because “If it bleeds, it leads.” It’s that mentality, and
it’s all about ratings. And it’s unfortunate that if you
showed Canada news, where the top story, the breaking news is
speed bumps. And you said Canada-Canada’s got guns, but they
don’t have the violence.
MOORE: Right. Because...
QUESTION: But yet, here-here
speed bumps wouldn’t even make the news.
MOORE: Right. Because the
American media wants to pump you full of fear. All summer long,
what was it? Child abductions, right? Every other day it was the
child abductions. The truth is, child abductions are fewer from
this year than last year. And there were fewer last year than the
year before. It’s constantly pumping you with this fear that,
You could be next! Lock your doors! Buy another gun!
DONAHUE: Because it draws a
crowd, which is the coin of our realm. It’s what you have to do
to stay on the air and sell merchandise. So this is how we play
the game. But we could spend-and why are we so focused - -
incidentally, anybody here from Canada? You know, I want to you
see this piece of Michael’s film, “Bowling for Columbine.”
Watch this. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOORE (voice-over): As an
American with three locks on his doors, I found this all a bit
confusing. Even here in Toronto, a city of millions, people just
didn’t lock their doors.
(on camera): So you don’t
lock your doors, but we Americans do. Why is that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You must
be afraid of your neighbor.
MOORE: Do you ever leave your
doors unlocked at home? Yes? You do?
(voice-over): I decided to go
unannounced to a neighborhood in Toronto to see if this unlocked
door thing was true.
(on camera): Oh! Hi. Sorry!
Just checking.
Oh, hello!
Oh, hi. Nobody locks their
doors.
This door was wide open. And
you’re not afraid?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Should I
be afraid?
MOORE: Oh, I don’t know.
You live here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I
don’t think I’m afraid.
MOORE: You’re not, are you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONAHUE: Would you leave your
doors open at night? Unlocked? That is something.
Yes, ma’am?
QUESTION: I’m the mother of
both-kids of two (UNINTELLIGIBLE) boys, one who made this town
proud by being part of the Michigan State Flintstones-they’ve
won the national championship-the other murdered on the streets of
Flint by a drive-by shooting. Michael, I’d like to know, as
I’ve always respected you, what can we do to organize this town
so that we can be a part of the solution to this problem? And
I’m talking about mothers of murdered children.
MOORE: I think we’ve got to
throw out the old leadership and get fresh blood, new blood
that’s running-that’s going to run this town and other towns
like this. We’ve got to throw the people out of office who have
just presided over all of this despair. Nothing ever gets better.
I’m sick and tired of it.
You know, Phil, you were
here, what, 10, 12 years ago when “Roger and Me” came out. And
at that time, we had 50,000 GM jobs still. We had lost 30,000, but
we still had 50,000. Today there’s 12,000 GM jobs left here in
Flint, just-in just the decade since “Roger and Me.” And
nothing has happened. It’s only gotten worse. During a time of
incredible wealth in this country, cities like Flint, Michigan,
have just been on the ropes.
And you know, I got to say, I
don’t know-if I were the mayor of this town, I would be down
there to Ford Motor, and I’d say, You want to make General
Motors look bad? Put a factory here in Flint, Michigan. Put a
factory here because people will line up around the block, and
they’ll work their butts off for you. Pay them a good wage, and
that’ll bring this town back. You know, but there’s no
thinking like that about how to bring other jobs here.
(APPLAUSE)
DONAHUE: Yes, sir? Over here.
Please.
QUESTION: Michael, I’m here
with Mott Community College Learn (ph) Club, the criminal justice
club. So these students are future law enforcement agencies here,
right here. We want to make a difference. We’re aware that
what’s going on in our nation today is not working-punishment,
retribution. We know. Everyone knows. Why is our legislative
bodies-why are they not doing anything to make a difference?
MOORE: Because it’s much
easier to get elected, again, playing off people’s fears. Run a
law-and-order campaign. Promise you’re going to lock everybody
up. Play on the racism of the white voters, and let them know
you’re going to lock up the black community, or as many of them
as you can. We’ve got two million people in prison now. You
know, that’s the easy way to go.
The hard way to go is to say,
You know what? If we work toward full employment and if we had a
safety net to catch anybody who wasn’t employed, where we made
sure everybody had the means to get through day and the week and
the month, we would have an enormous decrease in crime.
But that’s not-that’s
hard work, isn’t it. That would take smart politicians. That
would take-that would take an effort amongst all of us, as the
voters, to say, We want to be like the Canadians.
DONAHUE: Right. Right.
MOORE: We want to be thinking
for each other collectively.
DONAHUE: And you will not
vote for someone that you think is soft on crime. Don’t tell me
you will!~ You won’t. It’s a third-rail issue. You can’t
possibly run for public office saying, You know, we have too many
people in jail. It doesn’t work. We are hooked on find them and
throw them in jail and forget them.
And we’ll be back in just a
moment.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up: Michael
Moore talks about the negative portrayal of black men in the
media. And Wednesday on DONAHUE: If convicted, should sniper
suspects Malvo and Muhammad be sentenced to death? Phil takes the
question to a live studio audience.
We’ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOORE (voice-over): I went to
see a former producer of “Cops” and executive producer of
“World’s Wildest Police Videos,” Mr. Dick Hurland (ph).
DICK HURLAND: You look
“liberal” up in the dictionary, and I think my picture’s in
there somewhere. Yes.
MOORE (on camera): So
then-then, you know, why not be compelled to do, you know, a show
that focuses on, you know, what’s causing the crime, as opposed
to just chasing the criminals down?
HURLAND: Because I think
it’s harder to do that show. I don’t know what that show would
be.
MOORE: I’ll pitch you one.
I’ll pitch you one, OK?
HURLAND: All right.
MOORE: Do a show called not
“Cops” but “Corporate Cops.” I’m telling you, everyone
in America who’s got just your basic everyday, you know, job is
going to love watching the boss being chased down the street with
his shirt off, thrown to the ground and a knee to the neck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONAHUE: He’s with you! But
it’s not likely.
Eric Thomas (ph) is your
name. And you’re how old, Eric?
ERIC THOMAS: I’m 25.
DONAHUE: You’re 25 years
old. When were you shot? How old were you when you were shot?
THOMAS: Twenty.
DONAHUE: Twenty. This was-who
shot you?
THOMAS: It was my fiancee at
the time, like, her couple ex-boyfriend, like, her ex-ex-boyfriend
from the past. Got out of prison.
DONAHUE: Right. And is this a
C-2 injury we’ve been talking about?
THOMAS: C-3, C-4.
DONAHUE: C-3, C-4. So
you’re, then-your paralysis...
THOMAS: Neck down.
DONAHUE: Neck down.
THOMAS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) neck
down, yes.
DONAHUE: You must appreciate
what the local town boy is doing here, Michael Moore.
THOMAS: Oh, definitely. I
like the part that, when he-the guy from Columbine, when you went
to K-Mart, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) people of K-Mart, and you showed the
actual-what can happen because they don’t show that a lot. They
show, like, a shooting. They’re either-they’re alive walking
around or they’re dead. They don’t ever show, like...
DONAHUE: Yes.
THOMAS: ... you know,
paralyzation a lot.
MOORE: You’re right. We
don’t usually see that but it’s because television doesn’t
want us to be thinking that you can actually fight City Hall and
win that-you know, what we’re told from the time we’re kids,
Don’t rock the boat. Don’t beat your head against the wall,
right? That’s what the system teaches us because it wants us in
line. It wants us on their assembly line, you know, so that
we’re-that we conform. And in this scene, to see these kids take
on K-Mart and win, it’s really a great moment. And it makes me
feel good to hear that you-that you enjoyed that. I appreciate it.
DONAHUE: Yes?
QUESTION: First of all, I was
raised in the Beecher district, and I’m very proud of that. And
also, what I wanted to-I wanted to comment on the issue about a
black man being arrested on TV, shown on TV.
DONAHUE: Yes. Yes.
QUESTION: And I think that
helps perpetuate the myth that we’re committing all these crime.
Not to say there’s not any crimes, but if you’re black, it’s
going to-you know, it’s going to make the news, just like-I look
at right here in Flint, when black people are killed, we get
little, small headlines, like that, on a police blotter. When some
white person is killed, first page, front page news, big articles.
DONAHUE: Yes.
MOORE: Right. Race is used to
manipulate the fears of white people to vote for conservative
politicians, to vote for conservative policies. And then white
people — 90 percent of the guns in this country are bought out
in the white suburbs where you don’t need them because there’s
virtually no crime. And as the prosecutor says in the film, these
guns then are stolen from the white communities and end up back in
the inner city, creating all this violence. And
it’s-it’s-until we deal with race, we’re not going to really
get to the core of a lot of our problems.
DONAHUE: We are in Flint,
Michigan, with Michael Moore, and we’ll be back in a moment.
ANNOUNCER: When DONAHUE
return: a showdown with Saddam, the war on terror and the alleged
“axis of evil.” Michael Moore wants to know when Americans are
actually going to get some attention from the Bush White House.
DONAHUE we’ll be right
back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DONAHUE: We’re in Flint,
Michigan, with Michael Moore, who’s responsible for the
movie-produced, written, edited, filmed, he did everything. It’s
titled “Bowling for Columbine.” It is a look at America’s
violent nature. How did we get this way? Why did we kill more than
11,000 people in one year to gun violence? And you think this
translates into foreign policy? Do I understand you, Mr. Moore,
sir?
MOORE: That’s right. I
think that if we’re taught from an early age
that it’s OK to use
violence to resolve our problems personally, then it’s
what do our kids think
tonight when they look at George W. Bush and he says it’s OK to
go bomb Iraq?
I mean, it’s-this isn’t
just starting with Bush. I mean, we have lived our lives-ever
since I was born in the ’50s, we’ve overthrown democratically
elected governments. We’ve staged coups. We sent our boys to die
in Vietnam for nothing and killed Vietnamese for nothing. We have
this whole sad history of this kind of violence. And it is
connected. It doesn’t just happen in a vacuum.
And it’s no surprise to me
why people outside this country in other countries look at us and
wonder Why? Why do you do this? Why do you want to jump to war
right now against Iraq? Of course, we all know it’s not about
weapons of mass destruction, it’s weapon of mass distraction,
you know, so that Bush can get our minds off the economy and
what’s really going on because there’s an election coming up.
(AUDIENCE)
MOORE: That’s what’s
really going on.
DONAHUE: Yes, ma’am?
QUESTION: Hi. We’re from
Canada, and we’re very pleased you made this movie because
we’ve been wondering for many, many years why America just
doesn’t get it. My husband here is the local coordinator in
Sarnia (ph) for the Coalition for Gun Control. Why don’t
Americans get that we have to change?
MOORE: You know, let me tell
you something. We’re actually a really good people. We are
so-you know this about us. We’re generous. After 9/11, everybody
poured out to be supportive. As individuals, we get it. It’s
when we collect-when we get together as a society, as an
electorate, that’s when we somehow don’t think straight. And
we just march like lemmings behind whoever’s in the Oval Office.
The great thing about you
Canadians is that you’ve decided a long time ago that you’re
going to be responsible for each other. Do you know what the-the
country I live in, we won’t even put it in writing that a child
has a right to a doctor. A child! We won’t even-that’s what we
do for our own children! We won’t even do that slight little
bit, universal health care for kids. If we would treat our own
children that way, and you must think this about us...
DONAHUE: Well...
MOORE: ... how would we treat
children of Iraq?
DONAHUE: Yes. We won’t
sign...
MOORE: Or anywhere else.
DONAHUE: We won’t sign the
land mine treaty.
MOORE: We won’t sign...
DONAHUE: This is led by...
MOORE: That’s right.
DONAHUE: Canadians are
leading the way.
MOORE: Because Canadians
don’t think first, Hey, let’s go in and just obliterate
people. Their thinking is, you know what? We’re human beings. We
can sit down. We can negotiate. We can work this out.
QUESTION: You didn’t even
sign the Kyoto accord, which...
MOORE: We won’t sign any of
that stuff...
QUESTION: I mean, that’s
our future!
MOORE: ... because of our
arrogance and our sense of entitlement. And it, I guarantee you,
like the Romans, will be our undoing. We will unravel as a result
of that because we didn’t take care of the real threat, 40
million people living in poverty, 50 million people with no health
care, 40 million adults who can’t read and write on an adult
level. That is what will make our society collapse, not Saddam
Hussein, folks! Not Saddam Hussein. No!
(APPLAUSE)
DONAHUE: Well, I regret that
the time has flown here in Flint, Michigan. Let us conclude by
saying once again, we-I am pleased to do highly recommend this
film. It’s going to make you mad, sad and, on occasion, glad.
This is a tour de force. You have my congratulations.
MOORE: Thank you, Phil.
DONAHUE: Now it’s time for
Chris Matthews and “HARDBALL.”
END
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