O Contínuo Espetáculo Norte-Americano da Tragédia

Em 2005, quando me formei na Famecos, eu escrevi uma monografia sobre o Michael Moore. Na época – menos óbvio do que agora – ele já aparecia como um tanto aproveitador da miséria alheia pra se auto-promover e promover sua agenda. Meu trabalho foi, portanto, sobre como Moore, em Tiros em Columbine, espetaculariza a tragédia através da sua crítica. Este é um aspecto relevante do trabalho de Moore, ele adora criticar a mídia por espetacularizar a tragédia alheia, pobre dele que parece não perceber que ele faz a exata mesma coisa. Mas isso é além do ponto…

O ponto aqui é que, por causa desse trabalho, li e assisti praticamente tudo que esse gordinho de Michigan fez e assino suas newsletter. Nada de muito útil ou interessante tinha aparecido antes a não ser convites pra palestras e lançamentos de seus outros “polêmicos” (risos) filmes, como Sicko e Farenheit 9/11. Entretanto, hoje recebi um e-mail dele sobre uma carta que ele teria enviado quando do desastre do Katrina sobre New Orleans. Ao final desse post (no leia mais/more) eu vou disponibilizar o e-mails pra vocês rirem um pouco.

O e-mail trata, essencialmente, de como os republicanos, mais precisamente a gestão Bush, só contrata pessoas desqualificadas e que, nos últimos 25 anos, os oficiais eleitos só teriam tido agenda de desfalcar o governo financeiramente.

Michael, vem pro Brasil ver como é aqui. Vem pro bovinão ver como é ter 40 anos de governo com a agenda única de roubar, desfalcar, desviar recursos e pessoal para interesses privados.

A birra de Moore é com o líder da FEMA – instituição federal de apoio contra desastres naturais e ataques – que teria tido somente experiência cavalgando em shows eqüestres. Imagina se o coitado do Mike fosse brasileiro? Lá ele pelo menos pode por a culpa nos seus “republican brothers and sisters”; aqui? DEMO, PT, PDT, PMDB, PSDB, PSOL, PC do B, PPS (devo continuar?): qual deles está limpo? Qual deles nos últimos 700 dias NÃO foi alvo, estrela ou escória de um escândalo envolvendo precisamente a incompetência, a roubalheira, a inépcia?

Mas Moore não fica aí. Seu e-mail é obviamente de apoio a Obama, e para tanto, ele reforça bem claramente o aspecto “racismo” envolvido no desastre. New Orleans é conhecida há muitas décadas por ter uma imensa população negra, em sua maior parte desprovida. Pois realmente: vendo as matérias e filmes sobre o desastre só se vêem vítimas negras. Negros, aliás, que são uma das maiores forças demográficas do país em termos eleitorais. De certa forma são eles sim que decidem as eleições. E nesse tópico ele chega finalmente aonde ele queria chegar: usar a mesma tática dos republicanos: O MEDO.

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can’t string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can’t pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you’ve sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

O mesmo medo dos repubicanos. Estamos abertos à ataques. Não teremos como nos defender. No encalço de McCain – amigo de Bush – que clama pra quem quiser ouvir que Barrack Obama não tem experiência com política externa e com exército, Moore crava a estaca do medo no coração dos americanos com seu descaso pela espetacularização. Transforma – como tudo que faz um bom ganhador do Oscar© – tudo em um show: o show da igual incompetência de Bush. “Já que é pra ter um incompetente, então que seja um novo…”.

Mais um capítulo do show de horrores (que ontem chegou ao seu ápice com a confirmação da candidatura de Obama, que aceitou com um discurso sem precedentes, aos moldes da aceitação de (risos) um Oscar) que se tornou a campanha para a Casa Branca. Deixo o e-mail aí pra quem quiser ler e rir um pouco.

Tá aí o e-mail do Michael Moore, recebido aí nesse dia 29 de agosto, de manhã. Sublinhei algumas partes mais, digamos, FORTES (risos) da carta para todos que votaram no Bush. Pena o voto ser secreto, porque queria muito saber em quem Moore votou. Se bem me lembro, quem mais metia a boca sobre o Collor eram exatamente aqueles que votaram nele. Talvez com direito, quem sabe?

No mais, as partes sublinhadas são pra (risos) sublinhar o discurso republicano imbricado nas sentenças maliciosas de Moore. Estranho como minha monografia tinha um folêgo que eu deveria certamente retomar: como as formas norte-americanas mais reconhecidas de crítica social através dos construtos da mídia, na verdade, reforçam o discurso hegemônico vigente.

Friends,

I’m am speechless after listening to Barack Obama’s speech last night. So I’m sending you something I wrote to you two weeks after Hurricane Katrina. It remains every bit as relevant today, on Katrina’s 3rd anniversary, as when I wrote it on September 11, 2005. Please give it another look. Here it is in full:

A Letter to All Who Voted for George W. Bush… from Michael Moore

Dear Friends,

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I’m just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that, the man you re-elected to lead us AFTER we were attacked, went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That’s right. Horse shows.

I really want to know — and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect — how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C’mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don’t start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that, after the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have… zero experience in emergency preparedness (!), do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military, and have never seen young men die in battle, send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?!

With the nation’s debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn’t he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That’s not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him at some fundraiser with John McCain. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a “flyover” in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2,500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read “My Pet Goat” to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying “Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you’re doing a heck of a job!”

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can’t string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can’t pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you’ve sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn’t up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren’t up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn’t a horse show.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com
MMFlint@aol.com

(And my idea now, some three years later, is that they seek forgiveness and redemption by voting for Barack Obama — or just stay home on November 4.)

P.S. An excellent film on Katrina, “Trouble the Water,” is currently playing around the country. Go see it!