Had "the pleasure" of meeting Michael Moore (and his camera crew) in a Morristown (NJ) restaurant twenty odd years ago. It was at the "victory celebration" he threw for his candidate, Ficus (in New Jersey's 11th Congressional District) against Rodney Frelinghuysen.

Remember him and some of his crew, sitting at the bar for the last hour of the evening, nursing beers, chomping peanuts and making "political commentary" about the ball game playing in the background. It was quite a sight, a real Algonquin round table. An astute political observer he is not.

Did not think much of him them, think less of him now. A thoroughly opportunistic show boat and fraud.

Loox like Moore has never meet a general or secret-police chief he didn't like.

The pressure which 'thinking people' feel to 'conform' to a status quo, is VERY, very strong indeed. Most of them/us cannot withstand it, without some sort of consistent, strong backing from a larger group of principled people.

I really hope the ICFI can rise to the quickly-developing/degenerating World situation. So far, its physical presence is weakly-felt, in most places.

There's a real degenerated character to these anti-establishment figures that get so much publicity, kind of makes you sick listening to him.

Micheal Moore is worth $50 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
There is tendency among middle class Marxists to avoid the fundamentals of class analysis, i.e. the material identification of what class somebody they like or wish to to swaye is actually in. Michael is far beyond the middle class by any definition. $49 million could buy a lot of class struggle, leaving him a million to take care of what's left of his life. But then how could he guarantee that his children enter that parasitic class of rentiers. Of course it takes far less money to bribe the middle class and/or nouveau riche. Chomsky is worth $2million. http://www.hoover.org/resea.... He also rationalizes his wealth on the basis of that ultimate principle love of family. Workers get pity and not love from these petty bourgeois. The putrid fact that both of these activists have made a great living decrying the pain and suffering of the working class is obscene. But to be fair other liberals like John Steinbeck did worst. He encouraged his sons to go kill peasants seeking their freedom in Vietnam and joined the CIA himself. Jack London poured a fortune into a obscene ranch and militantly supported the allied side of World War I. However we can forgive these two writers since they at least gave us great literature. Something neither Moore nor the Chomsky have done. Both have made
a fortune on second rate liberal propaganda. A form of cowardly libertarian anarchism.

As a guide to the perplexed : " Above all, don't trust PRIVILEGED people " ( Trotsky, I recall ) .
This web site gets this very right : too many anti-socialist " socialists " promoted in that capitalist cesspool mainstream news media.
THEY invariably lead us nowhere. ALL EGO !

AFAIC, about the only useful thing Chomsky has given the Left is the concept of 'retail' (conspiratorial non-State actor) versus 'wholesale' (State) terrorism.

And as I've stated here before: the one time (I recall) that Chomsky came to town, the (large) venue arranged for his talk was *quickly* sold out -- within a day -- to essentially a VERY middle-class (and well-connected) audience.

'Jack London poured a fortune into a obscene ranch and militantly supported the allied side of World War I. '

I've always wondered why "The Iron Heel" has such a demoralized, demoralizing ending...

I hesitate to ever recommend this 'great socialist novel' to anyone. Now I never will.

Moore should be challenged to make a movie about the Flint Sit-down Strike, since it did happen in his hometown. He has the financial resources and there is an abundance of historical material and some close living relatives of leading participants that could prove to be essential. But no, it is all Russia all the time

Moore began his public career as a populist iconoclast and contrarian; he was a "guerilla theater" David who persistently, noisily, and even courageously challenged corporate and political Goliaths. His filmmaking reflects a relatively radical sensibility-- "radical", that is, in the broad sense of challenging authority and seeking root causes for sociopolitical conflicts and abuses.

But when Moore put on his would-be "pragmatic" baseball cap, he became a virtual parody of the progressive-liberal lite "Everyman". As a child growing up in a family of loyal Democrats, Moore internalized the prevailing mythology, ethos, and belief system.

This outlook, or model, is predicated on a devout belief that "good government" is the best remedy for social and economic inequality and other abuses of power; a reformist belief that change occurs incrementally, and is best accomplished by continually supporting "lesser evil" candidates and policies; and, most importantly, the inevitable conclusion that this "method" of achieving political salvation requires "conditional" support for the Democratic Party.

So Moore turned himself into a caricature of the hapless "battered Democrat"; occasionally barking or howling at the party's shortcomings and inadequacies, but nevertheless insisting that its candidates and incumbents must be supported in order to "resist" the presumptively evil, monstrous Republicans.

I think Moore may have struggled over the years with a deeper realization that this myth/belief system is (fatally) flawed. When the crisis and scandal concerning the contaminated water supply erupted in Flint, Michigan, Moore's home town, it seemed for a while that this catastrophe might shock Moore into finally rejecting this doomed, failed approach.

Alas! even that "object lesson" failed to shake Moore loose from his inane political stance. Instead, it perversely reinforced his advocacy for "working within the system" to elect "more and better Democrats".

Worse than that, over the years Moore confessed a personal attraction to Hillary Clinton that is downright creepy. In the heightened hysteria that began during the campaign season, and has steadily escalated ever since, Moore's vacant politics and his lust for Hillary has metastasized into credulous lunacy.

All that said, it's remarkable that someone who was level-headed enough to make films like "SiCKO" has degenerated to the point of becoming another cheerleader for Russophobic hysteria.

Please see an earlier critique of Moore, posted to an earlier WSWS article about Moore's useful idiocies.

Prof Bomb Libya Cole is adding his "academic" voice to the hysterics
stating "The Russian Job: The Plot Thickens"
Of course, Prof Bomb Libya Cole has not any problems with Clintons' "charity foundation" getting very real money from Saudi royals
At least one thing is clear now - Trump's presidency is a litmus test for USA "progressives" if one still needs one.

It's a Big, Fat EPIC FAIL for that.

At some point Moore had something interesting to say (e.g. Roger and Me) but his current political trajectory is completely reactionary. In his latest movie Trumpland he says somewhere about Hillary that “I hope she did kill Vince Foster. That’s badass,”. For Moore and his ilk, just having a female president is good enough, the criminal policies of such a president are of no concern. Now of all the things that Trump can be rightly criticized for, Moore has picked up the most reactionary way to attack Trump from the right. It is impossible to listen to this drivel

Well stated!

My previous reply expanded in the writing, as usual, so I ended up posting it as a separate comment. Thanks for the inspiration. ;)

Yes, unfortunately this is true