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Amy Goodman: I [recently] had a chance to sit down with Academy Award-winning filmmaker and author Michael Moore yesterday. He was in his home state of Michigan, one of the hardest hit areas of the nation, Michigan's [unemployment] now at 8.7 percent.
Michael Moore has recently published a new book called Mike's Election Guide '08 and a new online film called Slacker Uprising: A Look at the Youth Vote. Michael Moore is best known for his films Sicko, Fahrenheit 911, Bowling for Columbine and Roger and Me. He has recently been campaigning for a group of Democratic candidates in Michigan and is a backer of Barack Obama. I spoke to him from Traverse City, Michigan. ... Michigan is a very hard-hit state right now. In fact, John McCain pulled out of Michigan. Do you see a connection?
Moore: I'd like to believe it's because I'm here that he left, but I don't even know why he was here to begin with. People here have been bludgeoned during the last eight years. And, you know, the sad part about that is, is that next year or the year after, when they look back on this year, this is actually going to look like a really good year, because once General Motors merges with Chrysler, thousands and thousands of jobs, more jobs, are going to be eliminated, on top of the already thousands of more jobs that will be eliminated in the next few years because General Motors and Chrysler build twentieth century vehicles that either nobody wants or we shouldn't be building, considering the climate crisis that's in front of us.
Goodman: How did it happen that they didn't change, that you have now in Michigan the highest unemployment rate in the country?
Moore: It happened because the workers don't control the means of production. Oops, I guess I can't be president now that I said that. No, but seriously, I think that if the autoworkers, years and years ago, could have had a say in the cars that were being built, the Big Three would have built cars that people wanted to drive, instead of the kind of crappy-mobiles that they continue to build, the gas-guzzlers they continue to build. And people wanted something different, and nobody listened, because the auto companies were arrogant, and they had -- they have always had the attitude that what's good for -- you know the old saying -- General Motors is good for the country. Well, the country changed; General Motors didn't change. And so, now the people have suffered as a result of it. If we had a democratic economy, where the people, we the people, had a say in the decisions that are made, in terms of how our corporations are run, the things that they produce for our society, what we need collectively as a society, we probably wouldn't find ourselves in some of the positions that we're in right now.
Goodman: We're quite a ways away from Roger and Me, but you started right there.
Moore: Well, that distresses me to no end to even think about that, that it's almost twenty years since Roger and Me, and I was saying this twenty years ago, that, you know, unless we get a handle on this, things aren't going to get any better. And they didn't. They just continued to get worse. If you go back and look, actually, at Roger and Me now, Flint, Michigan looks pretty good. Even though 30,000 jobs at that time had been eliminated, there were still 50,000 people working there. I think the last number I saw is that there's somewhere between 11,000 and 13,000 people working for General Motors in Flint now, so almost 40,000 jobs less in Flint since I made that film. So it's -- I just can't tell you how distressing that is for me.
Goodman: You know, a couple weeks ago, we reported on the Michigan Messenger, that had that report that said that the Republican -- local Republican Party was going to be challenging voters based on lists of homes that have been foreclosed. And then it turned out that McCain, at the time, had his campaign headquarters, his office, in one of the foreclosure lawyer's offices. But what about the foreclosure rate in Michigan right now?
Moore: Well, they're really bad here in Michigan. I think if we're not the worst, we're in the top three, along with Florida and -- I forget the other state. But it's literally thousands each week here, people losing their homes.
And that story about the local Republican Party that was going to try and take a look at the foreclosure list in order to try and stop people from voting, you know, the Republican Party here in Michigan years ago actually -- you know, they weren't great, but they used to be decent. They used to -- they passed a lot of the early environmental laws here. The Republican governor was in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment for women, things like that. This was back in the '60s and '70s. And then, they just went weird, like all the Republicans did. And the last Republican to run for governor here two years ago was the guy who founded Amway. So, it's a really bizarre situation here now, in terms of the Republicans that are trying to make some headway.
But, frankly, I'm very optimistic about one thing in this state, and I've been working very hard on this locally. I set a goal to remove three Republican congressmen from Michigan in this election. And each of the three Democrats that I've been supporting, campaigning for, raising money for here in Michigan, all three of them are now ahead, in the polls, of the Republican incumbents here in Michigan. So I think we're going to have even better news on election night on Tuesday, not just in terms of the White House, but also the congressional delegation from states like Michigan.
See more stories tagged with: election 2008, michael moore
Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!
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