Product Description

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Stupid White Men comes a hilarious act of sedition to overthrow the 'Thief in Chief'-and effect the kind of change that just may save the country. Michael Moore is on a mission: He aims to unseat the man who slithered into the White House on tracks laid by guilty Enron execs and greased with his daddy's oil associations. And as for 'The Left,' they're just as satisfied to stand idly by as the chasm between the 'haves' and 'have nots' grows wider and wider. That's right, Michael Moore is back with a new book that reveals what's gone wrong in America and, more importantly, how it can be fixed. In his characteristic style that is at once fearless and funny, Moore takes readers on another wild ride to the political edge of righteous laughter and divine revenge.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #341703 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10
• Released on: 2003-10-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 249 pages

Amazon.com
The people of the United States, according to author and filmmaker Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Stupid White Men), have been hoodwinked. Tricked, he says, by Republican lawmakers and their wealthy corporate pals who use a combination of concocted bogeymen and lies to stay rich and in control. But while plenty of liberal scholars, entertainers, and pundits have made similar arguments in book form, Moore's Dude, Where's My Country? stands out for its thoroughly positive perspective. Granted, Moore is angry and has harsh words for George W. Bush and his fellow conservatives concerning the reasoning behind going to war in Iraq, the collapse of Enron and other companies, and the relationship between the Bushes, the Saudi Arabian government, and Osama bin Laden. But his book is intended to serve as a handbook for how people with liberal opinions (which is most of America, Moore contends, whether they call themselves "liberals" or not) can take back their country from the conservative forces in power. Moore uses his trademark brand of confrontational, exasperated humor skillfully as he offers a primer on how to change the worldview of one's annoying conservative blowhard brother-in-law, and he crafts a surprisingly thorough "Draft Oprah for President" movement. Refreshingly, Dude, Where's My Country? avoids being completely one-sided, offering up areas where Moore believes Republicans get it right as well as some cutting criticisms of his fellow lefties. Such allowances, brief though they may be, make one long for a political climate where the shouting polemicists on both sides would see a few more shades of gray. Dude, Where's My Country? is a little bit scattered, as Moore tries to cram opinions on Iraq, tax cuts, corporate welfare, Wesley Clark, and the Patriot Act into one slim volume--and the penchant to go for a laugh sometimes gets in the way of clear arguments. But such variety also gives the reader more Moore, providing a broader range of his bewildered, enraged, yet stalwartly upbeat point of view. --John Moe

From Publishers Weekly
Flush from the success of Stupid White Men and an Academy Award for best documentary, Moore continues his rhetorical assault on the Bush administration. The book shares much with Al Franken's Lies besides liberal sentiment and satirical tone; not only do both authors rely on the hoary device of having God tell them He doesn't support the president, but they each claim to pack their carry-on luggage with baseballs to bean would-be hijackers. But where Franken attacks individual conservatives, Moore focuses on issues. His first chapter is a series of unsettlingly specific questions (based on rigorously footnoted facts) about the political and financial ties among Bush, the Saudi Arabian government and Osama bin Laden's family, though he leaps from the facts to speculation when he wonders whether the September 11 attacks might have been hatched within the Saudi military. Other chapters attack the public's susceptibility to what he casts as the fear-mongering tactics the administration has used to justify foreign military interventions and, he says, the erosion of domestic civil liberties, and he lays plans for a Democratic victory in 2004: in addition to a half-serious nomination of Oprah, he offers a prescient, reasoned and highly favorable evaluation of Wesley Clark as a candidate. Moore's arguments work best when delivered mostly straight, since he isn't always as funny as he seems to think he is. Straightforward propositions leavened with humor, like a guide to talking to conservative relatives, work fine, while efforts at flat-out farce ring hollow. But expect liberals to once again eagerly support one of their most prominent spokesmen by checking this out at the cash register.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
George W. must have added another Michael Moore voodoo doll to his collection after this diatribe. Through affable reader D. David Morin, Moore mercilessly excoriates the Bush administration and its cronies, adding insult to injury with his sometimes sophomoric humor. Morin affects the persona of a "regular guy" in his narration. But you can hear bubbles being burst and minds opened when Moore piles on the rhetoric. We need a prosaic Thomas Paine in this age of government run amok, and the controversial Moore does an admirable job. You'll be sure to enjoy this audiobook unless, of course, you're a Republican. D.J.B. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Politics
I like the way the information is presented and how you can realize that this guy actually cares what he is writting. Recomend the book

Michael Moore -- early, accurate, mostly unheeded
Someday, it won't even take a smart person to write a history of the missteps, miscalculations and mendacities that led us into the wilderness of the Iraq War. Part of that history will be of the few -- the very few -- voices that spoke the truth early and often, ignoring the cacophony of governmental officials and their media sidekicks who ignored their consciences and trumpeted war as good for the country, if not their pocketbooks and ratings. Michael Moore will be prominent in this recovered history,

"Dude Where is my Country?" shows Moore at his wildest and bestest -- asking hard questions about the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq War that few others were asking. This was in 2003, mind you! And doing his shtick with humor, sometimes bitter and brokenhearted. Moore's questions are sometimes a little off the mark, but worth asking, if only to be given a satisfactory explanation. For instance, he asks, how could Osama bin Laden, supposedly hiding in the hills of Afghanistan and in need of dialysis, manage to orchestrate a successful attack on a superpower half a world away? I personally think it's not all that farfetched, given the reportedly loose organizational structure of al Qaeda, but let's hear the experts answer this. But Moore also asks more troubling questions about the too-cozy relationship between the Bushes and the House of Saud, a most repressive dictatorship. For instance, did the 9/11 hijackers really learn enough on a few quickie turns on a flight simulators to pilot their craft into buildings 3 times out of 3 (the 4th jet deliberately crashing into a field in Shanksville, PA)? Or were the hijackers (the pilots at least) trained in someone's air force? Moore then goes on to dissect the lies leading to the Iraq war -- that Saddam had nukes, chemical weapons, etc. -- and the credulous acceptance that these lies had in the public and the media.

Some of the material in this book eventually showed up in "Fahrenheit 911," Moore's famous movie about the attacks. Certain aspects of the movie that did not receive enough exposition received more here, notably the Unicom pipeline being built through Afghanistan to bring natural gas to a plant being built by Enron, of all firms. Money talk, patriotism walks.

Mike Moore is an extraordinary human being and a great American. He has been demonized by the right and marginalized by the MSM. Yet he still comes out swinging -- whether out of a surplus of ego, a thirst for justice or genuine compassion for ordinary people, I don't care. In 2003, he was practically the only person calling for government and media scrutiny and accountability -- one of the only people who was neither a conner nor conned. "Dude, Where's My Country?" will stand as a testament that in the early years of the new century, Americans actively chose to be gulled into two treasury-draining wars by leaders whose wisdom was as small as their arrogance and greed were large. Michael Moore is the Cassandra of our times. But his reputation can only increase as more and more of us accept the truths he has so genially been laying before us for years.

(D. David Morin does an OK job narrating, but it would have been excellent to hear Michael read his own material)

You cannot dispute facts...
Look, this is the sort of book wjere you either believe the facts (yes, facts) put in front of you, or you play ostrich and convince yourself it's all lies. Moore, unlike someone like Coulter, however, can nack up his statements.
But I want to address a particular reviewer: S. Peek, you need to read the book again. First, Moore never said Osama didn't plan 9/11. he said there was the POSSIBILITY he didn't, and that the Saudi government MIGHT have. He never called Osama innocent.

Second, you says he doesn't substantiate anything he says, other than the footnotes in Chapter 1, was your copy missing the huge notes appendix in the back? He substantiated everything.

Third, you said he gave "dubious" sources... hmmm... I never considered the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, New Yorker magazine, etc., not to mention several officail documents, as "dubious." Exactly what DOES define dubious for you?

Fourth, he suggests Hanks and Oprah as possible presidents. We could do MUCH worse. In fact, we have been the last 8 years. You said we don't pick pur presidents/leaders based on whether they're nice people or celebrities. Even hear of Ronnie Reagan? Other leaders... Fred Thompson, Schwartzenegger, Sonny Bono, Clint Eastwood,Jesse Ventura, ... all voted into office without a shred of political experience....