Why Michael Moore's films have a silver lining

A couple of days ago, I met up with two college friends, enjoying the waning days of summer. We have less than half a month to go before class begins, which would herald the start of our second year. It was a nice day out. We had lunch at a tiny café tucked behind the red marble-stone building of Takashimaya, one of Japan's flagship store (like the American Macy's). Of course, none of this is necessary detail, unless I was trying to set the scene or attempt an attention to detail. Whatever. Half-way through our lunch bite we discussed politics and semi-touched on America's relationship with the world.

The reason why I titled my post 'Why Michael Moore's films have a silver lining' was because the topic of discussion prompted me to think about how Americans sometimes take pre-emptive security measures for safety reasons. Prior to that we were discussing the difference in job perks between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Singapore. The Prime Minister of Singapore earns a salary that is at least three times the salary of the President of the United States, and has a much smaller country to govern. [ed. note - The Singapore government says that the reason civil servants have such high paying jobs is to prevent corruption - that's debatable]. The latter gets to live in the White House, which is part of the prestige of being President, whereas the Prime Minister of Singapore does not have a state-owned residence; the Prime Minister, upon taking office in the political sense, resides in his (or her, to show that I am gender-equality conscience?) private property. Moreover, even though the President of the United States is paid less and has more to manage on his agenda, as the sole important representative of a superpower, as the leader of the world's most influential country with regards to politics, policies, and even the environment, the President rests on a significantly larger share of the global stage than the political leader of a fairly developed country (especially relative to neighboring countries within its region). In colloquial terms, the President of the United States has a bigger limelight. Also, the perks of his job are more prestigious and fancily served (if the word, 'fancily' is appropriate, I do not know), that are not personally charged on the President' expense, such as Secret Service, Air Force One, and whole staff of personnels running the day to day operations of the White House (the White House Press, Housekeeping, speech writers, campaign aides etc.). Let's not forget it is also this country that is able to employ best brains and intellectuals working as members of the Cabinet, as part of the administration in the name of the President, and working as his advisor.

Sure, the Prime Minister of Singapore is also entitled to a team of advisors as part of his job, but everything is operated on a much smaller scale.

My friends also argued that the President of the United States has plenty of money earning possibilities, giving speeches and guest-lecturing at various institutions across the country. Then there is also the possibility of writing a memoir, or have others write a biography of you and thus play a pivotal role in determining your legacy. I don't think the prime minister of Singapore has as much post-office opportunities as the President of the United States.

Speaking of autobiographies, we discussed various less-educated group of elites, namely celebrities who have also marketed themselves through the personal medium of the autobiography (after writing the last sentence I was eerily reminded of somebody's humanities essay on St. Augustine's The Confessions). I don't believe that young stars like N.R, in her early twenties would have something significant or wise to say about her relatively short life so far, even with the aid of ghost-writers. Of course, in the case of Bill Clinton he had a definitive chapter of his life closed and post-presidencies often leaves the former President a period to reflect his time in the Office.

But back to my thesis: I believe that Americans have often neglected to ensure world peace (not intentionally, of course). We have a revelation that 9/11 could have been avoided if the FBI and the CIA had cooperated rather than keeping vital information from each other. I don't accept the argument that these governmental institutions are so swamped with leads, of which (I'm not so sure on the statistics) 90% of them are false, so this makes it likely that vital and real leads are buried and glossed over. It's possible that these clerical error happen, but its the technology and the capital at the disposal of these giant bureaucracies that suggest otherwise. True, Michael Moore's films should be taken with a grain of salt, but I sincerely believed that he would never have lied, as a film maker, to the American public. He exaggerates more than he does to distort the truth. In my book, the distortion of truth is a more serious felony of misrepresentation than the exaggeration of the facts at hand. Distortion of truth misleads, whereas exaggerations are best used to emphasize Moore's political message and to emphasize the social commentary of his films. Distortion of truth undermines the potential to analyze and understand the failings of society, either through poor policy implementations or neglect of social values and welfare. For this reason, Michael Moore's films contain a bigger grain of truth (the silver lining) than the grain of salt (or precaution) taken on the part of the viewer.