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michael moore
Pro-Democracy Americans Gear Up for 'No Kings' Day Nationwide
"Don’t miss this chance to be part of the largest expression of free speech we’ve ever had," said progressive filmmaker Michael Moore.
Oct 17, 2025
Organizers are expecting Saturday's nationwide "No Kings" rallies to be among the largest single-day demonstrations in US history, and many activists and politicians on Friday sent messages of encouragement to demonstrators.
Leah Greenberg, the co-founder and co-president of Indivisible, which is one of the main organizers of the demonstrations, told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on Friday that she and her group are "engaging in the most American activity in the world, which is coming together in peaceful protest of our government."
Greenberg then addressed attacks from President Donald Trump and other Republican lawmakers over the last week that the "No Kings" events were a "hate America" rally.
"This is a classic exercise of the authoritarian playbook, to try to create fear, to try to threaten, to try to make people back off preemptively," she said. "We're not going to do that... we won't be cowed."
Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich also hit back at GOP claims that the "No Kings" rallies were anti-American, and he argued that the people attending them will be doing so out of a deep sense of patriotism.
"We’re rallying tomorrow because we LOVE America," he wrote in a post on X. "It's an opportunity for all of us who love this country to express our determination that our nation’s ideals not be crushed by the Trump regime."
Progressive filmmaker Michael Moore encouraged his supporters to take part in Saturday's demonstrations, and he wrote on his personal Substack it was of the utmost importance for Americans to make their voices heard in the face of authoritarian threats from the Trump administration.
"Don’t miss this chance to be part of the largest expression of free speech we’ve ever had," he said. "Time has run out. One year from now, don’t find yourself wishing you had done something. Said something. This is our last chance, the final moment to stop the madness. I implore you to join us."
Several Democratic politicians also expressed support for the demonstrations.
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) blasted Trump and the GOP for attacking the patriotism of the "No Kings" protesters.
"I'll be damned if I'm gonna let the Draftdodger-in-Chief tell me what a patriot is," he wrote in a social media post. "We're STANDING UP, SPEAKING OUT, and FIGHTING BACK. No Kings in America. See you Saturday."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sent out a video message expressing solidarity with Chicago and Portland, Oregon, two cities in which Trump has tried to deploy National Guard soldiers, and let them know that they fighting against authoritarianism by themselves.
"The people everywhere are standing up, in all 50 states and thousands of towns and cities across America," he said. "We have no kings here, no crowns, no thrones."
A Message for No Kings Weekend: The millions rallying across the country love America and are defending it with joy, wit, defiance and courage. Everyone who stands with us now will win the affection and gratitude of people for all time. pic.twitter.com/xmHD5MjTpm
— Jamie Raskin (@jamie_raskin) October 17, 2025
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) accused Trump and Republicans of waging a campaign of intimidation aimed at frightening Americans out of exercising their rights to peacefully demonstrate.
"The Republicans' attacks on the No Kings protests are sickening," he wrote in a post on Bluesky. "To them, only pro-Trump speech is protected. If you oppose Trump, you 'hate America' or you're a 'terrorist.' What they're trying to do is simple: suppress turnout this weekend. Don't let them win."
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Desperation, Pain Drives Debate Over Making Photos of Mass Shooting Carnage Public
While some say showing what high-caliber bullets do to children's bodies could spur change, others warn that it risks traumatizing viewers—and re-traumatizing victims and their loved ones.
Jun 03, 2022
Amid the desperation, pain, and frustration in the wake of last month's massacre of 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school, there is renewed debate about whether making public post-mortem images of those killed by AR-15s and other assault weapons would help move the public or lawmakers in the U.S. towards taking real action on gun violence and mass shootings.
"I just cannot believe that Americans in this country would see what these weapons do to our children, our teachers, our community, and that they would stand by and do nothing."
In a society that often averts confronting the bloody and graphic consequences of its domestic and foreign policy choices, many people argue the images of children and others who suffer unimaginbale violence--like Emmett Till's pulverized body, Phan Thi Kim Phuc running naked and napalm-scorched down a South Vietnamese road, or Derek Chauvin's knee slowly choking the life out of George Floyd--have the power to change minds and potentially upend horrific norms.
Trauma surgeon Amy Goldberg believes Americans wouldn't be so numb to gun violence--which claims tens of thousands of U.S. lives each year and is so frequent that only the most horrific mass shootings make national headlines--if they saw what she has seen so many times.
"I think the citizens need to see the destruction of what these military-style weapons do, and that would be pictures," Goldberg told NPR earlier this week. "And I don't say that lightly. I don't say that with any disrespect, but I'm desperate. All the trauma surgeons need this to stop."
"I just cannot believe that Americans in this country would see what these weapons do to our children, our teachers, our community, and that they would stand by and do nothing," she continued.
"Emmett Till's mom had an open casket, and I'm sure that had some impact on the civil rights movement," Goldberg added. "The napalm girl--you know, those images, brought into our homes during the Vietnam War, I think significantly made change."
In an op-ed published by Common Dreams on Wednesday, attorney and social justice activist Mitchell Zimmerman contended that "there is no Second Amendment right to protection from reality."
Noting that "a number of states force women exercising their constitutional right to abortion to look at fetal sonograms before ending their pregnancy," Zimmerman asks, "What if states required anyone who wants to buy an assault rifle, or other semi-automatic weapons, to first see photos or films that show what such weapons do to human bodies?"
"Perhaps some would reconsider whether they really need this kind of weapon to hunt or engage in target shooting," he said.
The debate is not a new one. After 26 students and staff were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012, Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore asserted that the entire country was complicit in the slaughter due to gun control inaction.
"That is why we must look at the pictures of the 20 dead children laying with what's left of their bodies on the classroom floor," the Bowling for Columbine director said. "Then nothing about guns in this country will ever be the same again."
Moore's remarks sparked widespread outrage.
"There is no Second Amendment right to protection from reality."
"We want to remember the little angels as they were, with their happy expressions and faces and you want to think of the teachers trying to hold them safe and not to see the pictures of their bodies," said the leader of a Newtown parents group who called Moore's idea "a horrendous offense to the families."
Lenny Pozner told The New York Times that after his six-year-old son Noah died at Sandy Hook, he considered showing the world photos of what a 5.56mm x 45mm NATO-spec bullet--the type fired by an AR-15--does to a child's body. Made for use in war, such bullets can decapitate a person or leave a body looking "like a grenade went off" inside it, according to trauma surgeon Peter Rhee.
Pozner's first thought was, "It would move some people, change some minds." His next thought, however, was, "Not my kid."
Others believe that those puhsing for making such images public are mistaken and that many people--especially those so steeped in their sacrosanct right to bear arms that no number of dead children would move them--would "stand by and do nothing," as MSNBC opinion columnist Michael A. Cohen wrote on Thursday.
"To be an advocate of near-unfettered access to firearms means shutting out all the evidence that one's selfish demand for practically limitless gun rights is responsible for so much needless suffering," he continued. "It means looking at Robb Elementary, Sandy Hook, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas, or countless other tragedies and deciding that the fetishization of steel and bullets plays no role whatsoever."
"Making public the pictures of the children slaughtered at Uvalde's Robb Elementary School would likely do little to change minds or seriously reshape the debate about guns in America," Cohen conluded. "But allowing people to see such pictures would increase the national trauma around gun violence."
"It's something you never want to see and it's something you don't, you cannot, prepare for. It's a picture that's going to stay in my head forever, and that's where I'd like for it to stay."
Some proponents of showing photos argue that it could come down to the way in which the images are displayed.
"I can imagine some pictures that could be made without dehumanizing the victims that speak to the story of the AR-15, which is a story that has not been seen or fully told," Nina Berman, a documentary photographer, filmmaker, and Columbia journalism professor, told the Times.
"For a culture so steeped in violence, we spend a lot of time preventing anyone from actually seeing that violence," she said. "Something else is going on here, and I'm not sure it's just that we're trying to be sensitive."
There is also the very real possibility that ordinary people viewing images of extraordinary carnage could be traumatized, perhaps even forever. Uvalde coroner Eulalio "Lalo" Diaz, Jr. had the grisly task of idenfitying victims of the Robb Elementary School massacre.
"It's something you never want to see and it's something you don't, you cannot, prepare for," he said of the crime scene. "It's a picture that's going to stay in my head forever, and that's where I'd like for it to stay."
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Diplomacy, Not Bombs: Anti-War Voices Say Afghanistan Shows Need to Stop Any Further March to War
"The only thing that we 'accomplished' by going into... Afghanistan was to put trillions of taxpayer dollars into the military-industrial complex and destroy millions of lives."
Aug 16, 2021
Amid the lightning collapse of Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government and the all-but-certain return of Taliban rule, anti-war activists on Monday stressed that diplomacy, not bombs or the military-industrial complex, is the only path to lasting peace.
"Nearly two decades of military intervention and occupation did not build lasting peace. No number of bombs dropped, no length of time occupied, would have."
--Stephen Miles, Win Without War
The stunning but predictable Taliban reconquest of Afghanistan marks the end of the nearly 20-year U.S.-led war that cost the lives of more than 200,000 Afghans, displaced over five million more, and diverted at least $2 trillion in American taxpayer funds that progressive critics said could have been better spent on programs of domestic and international social uplift and well-being.
As the war ends where it began--with the Taliban in control of most of Afghanistan--the prospect of the country becoming a so-called "failed state" and haven for militant groups like al-Qaeda has prompted numerous observers to speculate that U.S. troops will return, and not just in the "over-the-horizon" operational capacity touted by President Joe Biden and Pentagon brass.
Peace advocates, however, emphasized the imperative to pursue diplomatic over military solutions to regional problems, with Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)--the only member of Congress to vote against the 2001 authorization for the invasion of Afghanistan and so-called War on Terror--asserting that "there has never been, and will never be, a U.S. military solution in Afghanistan."
Stephen Miles, executive director of Win Without War, said in a weekend statement that "the United States can best help mitigate violence today not with bombs, but with diplomacy, and by supporting efforts to build peace."
"Nearly two decades of military intervention and occupation did not build lasting peace," said Miles. "No number of bombs dropped, no length of time occupied, would have."
"Our responsibility toward Afghanistan does not end with the end of our military occupation," Miles added. "Just the opposite: Only now that we may finally recognize the failure of the war-first approach can we fully start down the long, difficult path of peace."
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the women-led peace group CodePink, demanded accountability for "those responsible for 20 years of epic failure," while warning that "now we have to stop the military-industrial complex from dragging us into new wars."
Filmmaker and activist Michael Moore echoed Benjamin's call to slash U.S. military spending, tweeting: "Defund the military-industrial complex (increase funding for veterans!), defund the NSA, defund Homeland Security."
Warren Gunnels, staff director for the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), argued that "the only thing that we 'accomplished' by going into Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan was to put trillions of taxpayer dollars into the military-industrial complex and destroy millions of lives--period, full stop."
"It's time to stop repeating the same mistakes over and over again," Gunnels asserted.
Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director of the racial and economic justice group Project South, tweeted that it "should be clear by this point that the only ones who benefited from the U.S. war on Afghanistan were war-profiteering politicians and corporations while countless lives were destroyed."
"Remember this," added Shahshahani, "the next time the U.S. war machine is pushing for yet another invasion."
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'About Damn Time': Cautious Optimism as Imminent Charges Reported for Michigan Ex-Officials Over Flint Water Crisis
"Justice for Flint is long overdue," said Rep. Jamaal Bowman. "But we need... reparations and long-term support for the kids and families who were irreparably harmed by racism and greed."
Jan 11, 2021
Clean water and human rights advocates responded with cautious optimism to a Tuesday Associated Press report claiming that Michigan's attorney general is preparing to indict former Gov. Rick Snyder and other ex-officials in connection with the deadly poisoning of Flint's drinking water.
The AP report, which cites "two people with knowledge of the planned prosecution," states that the office of Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) has informed lawyers for Synder (R), former state health director Nick Lyon, and others allegedly responsible for the ongoing lead contamination crisis in the largely impoverished, predominantly Black city of 101,000 residents that their clients can expect to be summoned to court soon.
"The very fact that people are being held accountable is an amazing feat. But when people's lives have been lost and children have been severely hurt, it doesn't seem like enough."
--LeeAnne Walters,
Activist and Flint mother
The precise nature of the charges against the former officials was not disclosed. Courtney Covington Watkins, a spokesperson for Nessel's office, told the AP that investigators are "working diligently" and "will share more as soon as we're in a position to do so."
In Michigan and across the nation, progressive response to the impending indictments was overwhelmingly upbeat; however, many observers said there was still a long way to go until justice is achieved.
LeeAnne Walters, a local mother of four who in 2018 was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her role in exposing the crisis, said she would like to know more about the charges against the former officials.
"The very fact that people are being held accountable is an amazing feat," Walters told the AP. "But when people's lives have been lost and children have been severely hurt, it doesn't seem like enough."
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) tweeted that "the justice train is coming through."
Lonnie Scott, executive director of the advocacy group Progress Michigan, said in a statement: "It's about damn time. Justice for the people of Flint is long overdue."
Snyder was governor when the unelected emergency managers he appointed to run the city made the cost-cutting decision to switch Flint's water supply to the Flint River, whose waters were highly corrosive and leaked lead from aging pipes into thousands of homes.
There were early signs of trouble in August 2014, when residents were told to boil their tap water, which was found to contain unsafe levels of fecal coliform bacteria.
Months later, residents began complaining that their tap water smelled and tasted foul, and that many children were becoming sick after drinking it. However, officials told them that everything was fine and that the water was safe to drink.
It later emerged that Veolia, the private company hired to deal with the bacterial contamination, knew about the lead contamination as early as February 2015, but balked at informing government officials.
In 2016, Snyder and Lyon publicly disclosed the poisoning, although subsequent investigation has shown that they knew about the problem much earlier than that.
An outbreak of Legionaires' disease in 2014 and 2015 linked to the water crisis officially killed a dozen people, although an investigation found that the actual death toll may have been as much as 10 times higher.
In 2017, Lyon and four other officials were charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Legionnaires' outbreak. However, in 2019 Nessel's office dropped the charges, while promising a new investigation.
Meanwhile, the people of Flint--already one of the most economically depressed cities in the nation--continued to suffer from exposure to the neurotoxin. Their pain was often ignored or dismissed.
In a stunning display of gaslighting during a May 2016 visit decried by filmmaker and Flint native Michael Moore as "too little, too late," then-President Barack Obama affected a cough, asked for water, and then gingerly sipped from a glass of filtered Flint water while lecturing his audience about how everyone over a certain age "got some lead in your system when you were growing up."
Children's brains are especially susceptible to damage from lead. As many as 26,000 Flint children have been poisoned, including 9,000 under the age of 6. While lead poisoning can be avoided, it cannot be reversed, and thousands of Flint children suffer from health and behavioral problems resulting from their exposure.
The poisoning is also blamed for a host of other health problems endured by Flint residents, including lower fertility and higher fetal mortality rates.
Last August--six years after the crisis began--Michigan officials announced a $600 million settlement following 18 months of negotiations that will fund public health and other needs related to the contamination.
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Michael Moore Provides 'Reality Check,' Warning Swing State Polls Signal Trump Could Pull Off Electoral Victory in November
The filmmaker correctly predicted Trump's win in 2016.
Aug 30, 2020
Pointing to polls in swing states and the wide gap in enthusiasm between President Donald Trump's supporters and voters planning to cast a ballot for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, progressive filmmaker Michael Moore warned Friday of signs that Trump may win the November general election.
Calling for Democrats to ensure a massive voter turnout in November, Moore cited a CNN poll from August which showed that in 15 swing states, Biden was only one point ahead of Trump.
"In Minnesota, it's 47-47," Moore wrote on Twitter and in a Facebook post. "In Michigan, where Biden had a big lead, Trump has closed the gap to four points."
"Sorry to have to provide the reality check again," he added, referring to his prediction in 2016 that Trump would win the election against Hillary Clinton, despite national polls showing Clinton in the lead.
Moore's warning comes days after progressives pointed to a CBS News poll which showed Trump winning Independent voters by 10 points. Despite the Democratic Party's focus on winning over moderate "Biden Republicans," the survey, released just after the Democratic National Convention, found that just 7% of moderates and 4% of conservatives said they would "ever consider" voting for the former vice president.
The CBS poll also showed that 71% of voters planning to support Trump are doing so because they "really like Donald Trump," while only 38% of Biden supporters said they have enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate. Forty-two percent said they were voting to oppose Trump.
Moore slammed the Biden campaign for announcing last week that it's considering in-person visits to a number of swing states, including Arizona, Minnesota, and Wisconsin--but not Michigan.
"Sound familiar?" Moore asked on Facebook, in reference to the Clinton campaign's decision not to campaign in the key state in 2016.
The filmmaker closed with a rallying cry to drive Democratic voters to ensure Biden wins through a massive get-out-the-vote effort.
"Don't leave it to the Democrats to get rid of Trump. YOU have to get rid of Trump," wrote Moore. "WE have to wake up every day for the next 67 days and make sure each of us are going to get a hundred people out to vote. ACT NOW!"
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The Real Problem With Michael Moore's New Film: Planet of the Humans
Technology cannot solve problems we don’t allow it to.
May 05, 2020
Having just written a book about climate change and energy, I forced myself to view Planet of the Humans, the controversial film Michael Moore released to the internet last week. From everything I had read about it, I expected it would disappoint me fantastically. I was only half right.
I am crushed to see that the filmmaker who gave us Roger and Me fails to see through the classism and white supremacy underlying environmentalists' tired "population control" narrative. When affluent people in affluent countries use that narrative, it's like they threw a party for the neighborhood, laced the appetizers with cocaine, but now want to kick the guests out for dancing too much. Wealthy nations must leave more room on the dancefloor for everyone, and get over thinking it's our party in the first place. Period.
I'm more conflicted about the rest of the film. I share the opinions of others, that Planet of the Humans seems willfully outdated in its presentation of solar technology and deceptive in how it conflates wind and solar with easy targets like biomass and ethanol. I also believe that lobbing ad-hominem attacks against well-intentioned activists like Bill McKibben is counterproductive.
But the film is right to suggest that we need better climate solutions, and in that way, it is a conversation-starter. It's unfortunate, then, that so many of the film's critics seem reluctant to engage in conversation. Several want Planet of the Humans banned, but their arguments so far are no more convincing than the film, as they leave several questions unanswered. For example, why has the American renewables transition seen such paltry reductions in greenhouse gas emissions compared to other nations, particularly when accounting for lifecycle emissions overseas, and what should be done about it? What developments in battery storage and grid design have mitigated fossil fuel backup and to what extent? What is being done, besides reporting, to remedy social and ecological destruction in the mining, processing and disposal of materials used in wind and solar? These, to my knowledge, seem like valid questions.
More importantly, critics accuse the film of parroting "fossil fuel industry talking points," which entirely misses one of the film's most important observations: that the modern renewables industry is rarely separate from the fossil fuels industry.
More importantly, critics accuse the film of parroting "fossil fuel industry talking points," which entirely misses one of the film's most important observations: that the modern renewables industry is rarely separate from the fossil fuels industry. So many energy conglomerates invest in both renewable energy and fossil fuels that when many of us buy renewable energy, we support fossil fuel extraction. Instead of addressing this issue, many critics have seized upon a few inarticulate lines from the film to deflect attention from the industry's structure to its technologies.
Focusing on technologies is a distraction for all of us. It is obvious that renewable technology is capable of powering the planet. The more important questions are: why don't we let it, despite clear evidence of what's at stake? Why should we settle for such a slow energy transition in the United States? Where Planet of the Humans sees a massive renewable energy con premised on weak technology, I see weak energy policies asking technology to do very little in the way of innovation.
Technologies are human-engineered solutions to human-conceived problems. The problem for which most American lawmakers have designed electricity policy is not climate change or fossil fuel dependence. Rather, policies mandate only that renewable electrons be added to the grid, not that we add less overall, or that we maximize greenhouse gas reductions in doing so. In effect, this is treating our energy transition like a racecar driver treats a tire-change, switching out one thing for another of identical shape. Never mind that our whole electricity system is obsolete. The grid is antiquated and shoddy. Distribution and demand have been engineered by people selling high-volume low-cost electrons, using subterfuge to make us think there's no other way, for over a century. Tires are only one part of what we need to change. We need a new racetrack, new rules, and new goals.
No matter our affinity for them or their optimal potential, renewable technologies are destined to fall flat on social and environmental benchmarks because they are legislated for the electricity system that we have, not the one we need. For example, in Scandinavia wind and hydro can stand on their own, without fossil fuel backup. Why not in the United States? The answer relates to our existing electricity system: its interstate geopolitics and the presence of a strong natural gas industry with good branding and innumerable, long corporate tentacles.
Americans are stuck with methane-spewing gas-renewable grids, and with tradable renewable energy certificates dependent on co-existing with fossil fuels, because they are relatively easy and cheap policies for putting renewable electrons on the grid, like a tire is easy to put on a car. But here we are, facing incontrovertible evidence from climate scientists that simply dumping renewable electrons on the grid is not working fast enough, and that methane might be making things far worse than presumed.
It's the willingness of citizens in affluent nations to accept energy decisions made on our behalf without making demands at the ballot box for social and environmental goals.
After writing Electric Mountains, in which I try to make sense of Northern New England's changing energy landscape, my disappointment in Planet of the Humans derives not just from its critique of renewables, but from how it reduces the issue to a good vs evil trope, which the film's critics are now participating in. Things are more complex, and it is high time to lean-in to that complexity. Renewable energy may be far better for the planet than how it's portrayed in the film, but is it as good as it could be, or as good as it needs to be given the state of the climate?
It is a copout to blame business for our climate impasse because the profit motive in capitalism is as predictable as a cat meowing. Renewable energy's Achilles heel is unimaginative governance--even among progressives--that permits renewables capitalists to use antiquated industry playbooks and big technologies making big money that trickles back into politics. It is propping up a broken, outdated system instead of redesigning it. Smarter policies will beget new businesses with smarter applications of technology, but we need to demand them.
The film is accurate in suggesting that humans are responsible for the sorry state of our planet, but it's not due to the number of us breathing air or eating food. It's the willingness of citizens in affluent nations to accept energy decisions made on our behalf without making demands at the ballot box for social and environmental goals. It is accepting without question the design of our lives, homes, and commerce as engineered by the people selling us electrons. It is treating visible technologies, like wind turbines and solar panels, as totemic icons of change, without asking for the receipts.
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What's Michael Moore's Actual Agenda?
In place of highlighting the Green New Deal as the Mother Lode option, the film offers no options to the climate deadlock.
Apr 30, 2020
As a climate voter and reporter, no matter who gets criticized, I applaud anyone with a bona fide analysis of why and how we are losing the war on climate. But I'm not a fan of superficial analysis, manipulation of people's beliefs, scapegoating, or hidden agendas. That's why I think that Planet of the Humans misses the mark and shoots at the wrong target, which vulnerable Americans, sheltering at home, can't so easily see. What's even more problematic is that we don't know Michael Moore's actual agenda.
Many who hoped to elect a climate-friendly administration this fall are now stuck at home, digesting a political loss and avoiding a contagious virus. In place of concerted climate action, the political stage is set for a contest between a climate destroyer and a fossil fuel enabler. If "Humans" were a better and more righteous film, it would help people in that task.
The Green New Deal, launched by the Sunrise Movement, introduced as legislation by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey, and a top offering of the Bernie Sanders campaign remains the most well-researched, tested, and articulated energy plan for stabilizing the climate.
But apparently, seven weeks of confinement is all it takes for Americans to develop amnesia about the 2019 vision of a crucially needed energy transition from fossil fuels to clean renewable energy. One of the most popular policy proposals on the table, though largely banned as a topic at the Democratic Party debates, the Green New Deal, launched by the Sunrise Movement, introduced as legislation by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey, and a top offering of the Bernie Sanders campaign remains the most well-researched, tested, and articulated energy plan for stabilizing the climate. It also promised to reinvigorate the economy, to provide well-paid new jobs, and to redress environmental justice.
But ho-hum-- on to the next thing, which happens to be the re-release of Planet of the Humans, produced by Michael Moore and directed by Jeff Gibbs. In place of highlighting the Green New Deal as the Mother Lode option, the film offers no options to the climate deadlock. Instead, it substitutes a backward look into the early evolution of renewable energy technology-- without a solid update on what is technically possible today. As it takes viewers traipsing through bygone trade shows, the film casts doubt on renewables, on environmental leaders, and by its erasure-- on the most evolved approach for a definitive transition away from fossil fuels--The Green New Deal. By failing to examine the GND core offerings, while exhuming its predecessors, it's anyone's guess whether Moore and Gibbs simply felt defeated by climate action's long trajectory; or might possibly be engaged in revising both the film and the Moore brand, thanks to new backing.
"Literally half that movie is just not relevant to the Green New Deal," says Mark Z Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, and an architect of its original energy transition plan told me in a podcast interview. Although the film delves extensively into biomass and biofuels, and the use of gas as a backstop for solar and wind sources, the GND doesn't include these dirty sources, according to Jacobson. "No biofuel, no biomass, no coal with carbon capture, no gas with carbon capture, no natural gas, no nuclear power, no coal." Nevertheless, while ignoring that current technology answers many of the filmmaker's prior objections, in vignettes shot a decade ago, the film zeroes in on its designated targets but omits mention of the socio-political context for the earlier green ventures which were less successful.
While many climate activists are frustrated by the slow evolution of climate solutions, it's important to recall that environmentalist organizations, (like 350.org and its founder, Bill McKibben), on whom the film focuses, made the attempt to open up the potential for a post-fossil fuel world, and build out alternatives, within the context of the dominant capitalist economy and its national energy policy: The compromised "All of the Above Energy Policy," got a pass due to President Barack Obama's personal popularity. The Obama energy policy included "biomass, biofuel, carbon capture, nuclear energy--things that don't actually work," says Jacobson. This was the context for early alternative energy tech, which as "Humans" and others have pointed out, forced renewables into a marriage with natural gas.
With a few minor tweaks, Obama's fossil-fuel friendly policy was rebranded as Hillary Clinton's Clean Energy Plan. Thanks to Obama's backstage "help" in the current election, some new version of that recipe will become Biden's energy policy, or possibly Cuomo's energy policy, or the policy of whoever IS designated as the Democratic contender. Unfortunately, whoever that is won't be the candidate who will champion and fight to enact the Green New Deal. It's more likely to be the one who told a climate activist, "Go vote for someone else."
Why are we in these dire straits? Because during the primary, despite numerous reminders, many people forgot the preeminence of climate. Instead, they voted for their gender, their pocketbook, or their economic status, allowing their friends and circles to do likewise. This is called "poverty of political will." That's why we're stuck with capitalism and its big foot on climate course correction.
Even though "Humans" derides capitalism, Moore and Gibbs fail to mention the long-standing capitalist capture of our government and economy, as though the climate temporizing and insufficient technological reach of early renewable energy and environmentalists--occurred in a vacuum.
Even though "Humans" derides capitalism, Moore and Gibbs fail to mention the long-standing capitalist capture of our government and economy, as though the climate temporizing and insufficient technological reach of early renewable energy and environmentalists--occurred in a vacuum. As the filmmakers cannily free themselves from the task of offering solutions, their film leaves viewers overlooking the source of climate inaction and projecting solutions that don't yet exist, such as just ways to address overpopulation, (a concern that has been known to verge into eco-fascism) but which the film trumpets as the definitive problem. Or erasing ones that do exist, like the Green New Deal.
Instead, the filmmakers zero in on a few specifics.
"Half of the film is about those dirty technologies, but they're not part of the Green New Deal plan," says Jacobson, who has developed state plans for all 50 states transitioning to green energy sources that would reduce 80% by 2030 and 100% by 2045-50. Over that time, the plan would transition all sectors, both personal and commercial, to totally remove all fossil fuel dependency. On- and offshore wind, photovoltaics on rooftops and power plants, concentrated solar power, geothermal electricity and heat, small amounts of tidal energy, hydro-electric power, and solar thermal are among the many sources for generation, transport, and storage.
When "Humans" was shot, there were also concerns over "intermittency," Jacobson explains, "Wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine, so you need some other source of energy. The film says that 'the backup source of energy is gas.' There are other options besides gas to back up renewables." To hear more about those, please listen to my interview with Jacobson.
The film also raises concern that electric cars require an outside source of electricity. Again, under a GND, the source for the electric will not depend on fossil fuel. But even now, "an electric car only uses 1/4th of the energy used to go the same mileage by a gasoline-powered car. You can charge the car any time day or night, giving people the incentive to charge the car when there's excess energy supply," Jacobson points out.
In studies done in 143 different countries, Jacobson and his team have found that they can match renewable power supply to demand for three years everywhere in the world. "One poll of 26K people in 13 different countries found that 80% of people want to transition to renewable energy. We need strong policies in place to plan out the transition and put deadlines on it."
As a reporter, I'm on the record critiquing the large environmental groups, which compromised in addressing climate. I critiqued the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) for promoting gas development through years of research (funded by Michael Bloomberg) into unsuccessful attempts to patch pipeline methane leaks so that gas could be declared "clean." I was also critical of 350.org's priorities when it nominally supported (but was far less active than Public Citizen, Popular Resistance, and Friends of the Earth) in opposing the Transpacific Partnership and other global trade deals that would have expanded gas and oil pipelines and export globally. 350's reluctance to pivot to the drawdown model, articulated by Paul Hawken, which engages agriculture as a crucial carbon solution, has slowed unity among the sectors promoting environmental solutions.
On the other hand, McKibben launched and framed the climate conversation. He worked with Bernie Sanders; and fought for climate language in the 2016 Democratic Party platform. Yes, it's fair to take a few shots at him. And, no, I don't support censorship. But I thank Josh Fox for taking a stand. I must admit that as I surveyed Facebook to see who applauded the film, and who spoke up for McKibben or renewables, I was surprised to see many one-time environmental proponents dodging the topic, or failing to defend a man they formerly idolized. At the end of the day, thus far, McKibben has done more to promote climate action than anyone else.
The failure to engage with "Humans" shortfalls is yet another example of the poverty of political will for the climate. "Planet of the Humans" was a timely warning back when it was shot ten years ago. But serving it up as a fresh analysis today presumes-- and preys upon-- audience ignorance. Its attack on renewables, energy-efficient transport, and environmental organizing, based on their past evolution under capitalism, excises the most crucial approaches for limiting climate chaos.
The film instead offers up "consumerism" as the proposed sacrifice. This seems like a good start-- except for one thing. Counseling austerity accords with what the government and its billionaire benefactors already WANT to inflict upon the population. A gutted health care system, withholding of protective gear, sacrificing front line health workers, dumping food rather than transporting it to the hungry-- are not all of these systemic austerity measures?
Are they implying that voluntarily limiting our consumer choices is all we need to do to address the climate problem? If Moore plans to lead the public in boycotts, count me in. But let's remember that for affluent white people, focusing on consumerism allows us to assuage our guilt by not buying more stuff. But for others, self-or societally imposed austerity means not eating, not getting health care, and not having a dwelling.
Film is an emotionally persuasive format with great power to shape or limit our sense of possibility. Both in the film and in a recent interview on Rising, Moore enlists viewers by recounting a fairy tale, "Mother Nature has sent us to our rooms," he says in a soft hypnotic voice. Then he proposes that each of us self-reflect on what we've done wrong. Crafted to speak to the inner child within each of us via the punitive social values we've internalized from this paternalistic society, Moore conflates both the natural world we have violated and the for-profit systems we've failed to check into a finger-wagging Mommy.
I'm not providing the link here. As a long time media critic, when all around me gets inducted by such manipulations, I point them out and counsel people to avoid them. What I object to is coopting the feminine to build a franchise for--not exactly sure what--agenda?
No. Please speak to me like an adult and tell me your agenda, don't invade my subconscious mind. We already have too much of that, thanks to television. My own consumer advice? Turn off the TV and be careful what moving images you watch. In the wrong hands, TV and YouTube videos can be neurologically invasive.
In erasing both the Green New Deal, and the Sunrise Movement and its diverse group of energized young people across American, Moore and company vilify climate leaders and remedies, boosting population control, and chooses consumerism over systemic change. This focus not only arms the right-wing, who have thoroughly embraced "Humans" for their Koch-funded denialism, but he also positions and rebrands himself as a political populist, Trump-style. His real goal may be public office and his real target donors. But what are the values he actually espouses? They're not evident from the film and he is not being transparent about them. Based on "Humans," and the "Mommy isn't happy!" story, it begins with enlisting white suburban Mom's, and further marginalizing others.
Perhaps I am mistaken. I hope I am. All I know is that before I sign up and donate my emotional body to your cause, I want to see transparency and integrity. That's what Bernie Sanders was all about. American hucksters are a mixed bag.
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Mobilizing Climate Action in the Face of Planet of the Humans
Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs's new film is so full of weak analysis, misinformation, and misplaced invective that I worry it will cause more harm than good.
Apr 28, 2020
We are in a climate emergency. That means we all need to do everything we can to get the world to stop burning fossil fuels and chopping down trees. And we need to do it as quickly as possible. Getting to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will take everything we have.
That's why it was so discouraging to see the new Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs film Planet of the Humans. One virtue of the film is that it calls out greenwashing and challenges the idea that we can sit back and wait for technology to save us. We can't. Getting to where we need to be requires serious changes in how society operates. It requires massive government investment in a just transition. And it requires that fossil fuel companies and banks be prevented from being the drivers of important social decisions. So, the film's anti-capitalism is welcome.
But that said, the film is so full of weak analysis, misinformation, and misplaced invective that I worry it will cause more harm than good.
Weak analysis.
Until quite recently in the US, when people talked about climate change, they framed it as something caused by all of us, and to be solved by each of us making different personal lifestyle choices. While there is plenty we can each do, like cutting back on eating meat and flying, that way of framing the issue doesn't clarify what we are up against and what is slowing the transition.
Bill McKibben, who is severely criticized in Planet of the Humans, kick-started the movement for fossil fuel divestment in 2012 with a speaking tour, and an article published in Rolling Stone magazine: "Global Warming's Terrifying Math." The fossil fuel divestment movement's explicit goal was to pin most of the blame on the fossil fuel companies which spent hundreds of millions on denialism, and even worse, whose business model relies on doing the very thing that needs to be stopped.
Working against that clarity, Planet of the Humans returns to an old-school misanthropic form of environmentalism that blames us all because we are bad as a species. The film starts with some musing on how long humans are expected to last as a species and then Gibbs, the narrator says, "What if a species went too far? How would they know if it was their time to go?" Given the pandemic that is killing so many of our loved ones, that call feels especially wrong right now. There is an ugly history of misanthropy in the environmental movement. One famous example was when some in Earth First said that AIDS was good for the environment.
But we human beings are an adaptable and smart species. We need to use those talents to, as quickly as possible, break some old and dysfunctional habits of ours, like seeing nature as a resource to be exploited for the accumulation of wealth, and allowing those driven by the profit motive to control our political systems.
In addition to his work focusing attention on the role of fossil fuel companies, McKibben has also been a major player in developing a broad multiracial and humanistic way of understanding our situation. According to that climate justice framework, we can live sustainably, even with as many of us as there are, if we dramatically and rapidly reorient our societies toward sustainability. All of the technology and resources we need to do that are with us. But there are powerful entrenched forces keeping us from getting there. As McKibben, and many others argue, the answer is climate justice mobilization, not extinction of our species.
Intellectual Dishonesty
In addition to being based on an outdated and counterproductive analysis, the film is also intellectually dishonest. A person with a 350.org t-shirt at a rally is asked his opinion on biomass. When he says he can't speak for 350, we are encouraged to think he has something to hide.
Better would be to focus everything we have on making a swift transition away from fossil fuels, deforestation, and the financing of these terrible things.
Solar arrays are criticized for being built using fossil fuels and for having gas hookups as part of their systems. But, so many of our economic processes are wrapped up into the old ways we are trying to move away from, we can't help but be implicated as we make the transition. Planet of the Humans also used fossil fuels in its making. Gibbs narrates much of the film while driving in a car. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. The transition is hard and complicated.
The main point of the film is that solar panels and wind turbines can't work, because making them causes environmental damage, and they cost more energy to make than they produce. It claims that windmills only work when the wind is blowing. Anyone paying attention to these issues knows that getting to functional renewable energy has required a lot of hard work, and some early attempts have failed. There are many people doing life-cycle analysis, looking at the energy required to make, operate, and dispose of renewable energy infrastructure. At this point wind and solar are tremendously successful. And few people besides Donald Trump are still worried that windmills only create energy when the wind is blowing. There are now many working solutions to that problem. Gibbs and Moore surely know that. These claims are simply false. Solar and Wind energy are already tremendously successful at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and their rapid expansion is key for getting the world off of fossil fuels.
Misplaced Invective
Finally, the film is full of misplaced invective. I am ok with the way the film takes down people like Richard Branson, though it left out the juiciest fact, that after getting a lot of press for promising to donate $3 Billion to the climate crisis, he never did so. And yes, we should remain skeptical of the work of people in finance who are engaged with climate change work. And yes, there is fraudulent pro-corporate greenwashing everywhere.
A film that really took that on, with enough credibility for its claims to be believed, would be helpful. But given how untrustworthy the film is, I have no idea if the Sierra Club compromised its principles in the investment companies it promotes. I know that its Beyond Coal Campaign was enormously successful, and that, as much as I dislike Michael Bloomberg, he played a very positive role in it. I'm not a fan of the corporation Caterpillar. But the fact that its bulldozers were used against protesters at Standing Rock doesn't make me against bulldozers. And it does not make me criticize the Sierra Club for being associated with investments in Caterpillar.
To me the most misplaced invective is the treatment given to Bill McKibben. He comes across in the film as dishonest and corrupt. And yet he has done more for the climate justice movement than almost anyone else in the world. For all I know he has made some mistakes in the past and backed some initiatives that turned out to not be good ideas. I have no idea. But the way he is presented in the film is pure propaganda. Look at the claims critically, even without having any outside information, and they all turn to smoke. Why Gibbs and Moore want to take down McKibben is a mystery to me.
What we need to accomplish as a species in the next ten years is almost impossible. The chance that we stabilize at the minimally safe level of 1.5C level of warming is vanishingly small. Anyone with the resources to make films about the climate crisis should think seriously about how their work will help motivate people to do everything they can to join the movement and do all they can to make a difference. The time for musing on whether or not it might be best for us as a species to die out is long past. Also long past is the time when we can be a circular firing squad and take down some of our most impactful leaders and organizations.
Better would be to focus everything we have on making a swift transition away from fossil fuels, deforestation, and the financing of these terrible things. Better would be to focus on helping people understand how they can become part of the rising climate justice movement and throw everything they have into making the planet remain habitable for our species and for others. I'd rather do that than sit back and wonder if we should all die.
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'Demoralizing' New Michael Moore Film Attacks Climate Movement at a Time When Solutions Should be at the Forefront, Say Critics
"Throughout, the filmmakers twist basic facts, misleading the public about who is responsible for the climate crisis."
Apr 28, 2020
A new film produced by documentarian Michael Moore is angering environmental activists who say filmmaker Jeff Gibbs plays fast and loose with the facts, attacks the wrong targets, and even ends up arguing for ecofascist solutions to the climate crisis.
"Throughout, the filmmakers twist basic facts, misleading the public about who is responsible for the climate crisis," wrote University of California Santa Barbara professor Leah Stokes of the film for Vox.
"We are used to climate science misinformation campaigns from fossil fuel corporations," she continued. "But from progressive filmmakers? That's new."
In "Planet of the Humans" (POTH), Gibbs focuses on what he sees as the false promises of renewable, green energy solutions to the climate crisis and a dismissal of the climate activist movement as the hurdles for decisive action to address the crisis.
Climate science writer Ketan Joshi, in a scathing review of the film, wrote that the film's "outright lies about wind and solar are serious and extremely harmful."
"Wind and solar aren't just technological tools with enormous potential for decarbonization," wrote Joshi. "They also have massive potential to be owned by communities, deployed at small scales with minimal environmental harm, and removed with far less impact on where they were than large power stations like coal and gas. They do incredible things to electricity bills, they decentralize power (literally and figuratively), and with more work they can be scaled up to properly replace fossil fuels."
Thank you for writing this. It is truly demoralizing how much damage this film has done at a moment when many are ready for deep change. There are important critiques of an environmentalism that refuses to reckon with unlimited consumption + growth. But this film ain't it. https://t.co/BmO7ABsIhZ
-- Naomi Klein (@NaomiAKlein) April 26, 2020
Heated newsletter writer Emily Atkin, in a post enumerating questions on the film for Gibbs and Moore, wondered why POTH avoids backing up its claims on energy.
"This movie repeatedly claims that humans are better off burning fossil fuels than using renewable energy," said Atkin. "But it also fails to cite any peer-reviewed science on lifecycle emissions, which show the cumulative impact of different renewable energy sources. Why?"
In a more disturbing move, Gibbs promotes population control as the best answer to the warming of the planet.
"There's a reason that Breitbart and other conservative voices aligned with climate denial and fossil fuel companies have taken a shine to the film," Earther's Brian Kahn wrote last week. "It's because it ignores the solution of holding power to account and sounds like a racist dog whistle."
That sentiment was echoed by Joshi, who noted that the film's emphasis on prioritizing white American voices was in line with its argument on population control.
"The film features a parade of--solely--white Americans, mostly male, insisting the planet has to reduce its population," wrote Joshi. "There is no information provided on which people in the world need to stop fucking, but we can take a guess, based on the demographics of the people doing the asking."
Films for Action, in a post on POTH, said that while questions of population growth are "complicated," the movie's proposal of poulation degrowth does not acknowledge those complexities.
"It's true we can't keep growing forever, in the same way we can't keep consuming the Earth forever, but in high-consumption countries, populations are already declining, and in areas where populations are still growing, the 'impact on Earth' is still low compared to the impact of 'rich' nations," the group wrote. "The truth is, pinning our problems on population lets industrial capitalism off the hook--what Daniel Quinn called the culture of maximum harm."
POTH has also been criticized for its treatment of climate activists. As Stokes wrote for Vox, the timing of such an argument seems counterproductive to solving the climate crisis.
"Perhaps the most insulting thing is that this film comes at a time when the youth climate movement is finally gaining momentum," wrote Stokes. "Young women like Greta Thunberg and Varshini Prakash have helped climate change break into the mainstream. Rather than bolster the work of the Sunrise Movement, Fridays for Future, or Zero Hour, it undermines these activists' achievements by sowing confusion and doubt."
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Because Bernie Showed 'There is a New Way Now,' Younger Democrats Backing Sanders, Says Michael Moore
"There have been approximately 15 million 17-year-olds in the past four years that have turned 18. And they are massively behind change."
Feb 01, 2020
Filmmaker Michael Moore told MSNBC host Ali Velshi Sunday morning that Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2020 Democratic presidential campaign is causing panic in elite party circles because of the movement behind the candidacy for the same reason that young voters overwhelmingly back the senator's bid for the White House.
"What the old school Democratic elite, the corporate Democrats, what they're worried about is that there's a new way now and there's young people behind this," Moore said. "There have been approximately 15 million 17-year-olds in the past four years that have turned 18. And they are massively behind change."
Sanders enjoys high approval ratings and support from youth voters in polling and has nabbed endorsements ahead of the primaries from a number of youth-led climate activist groups including the Sunrise Movement and Zero Hour Movement.
As Iowa voters head to caucus sites across the state Monday, Sanders shows high numbers among Hawkeye youth, polling at 39%--more than double his nearest rival for the state's youth vote, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has 19%.
"You can tell how good I feel by how nervous the establishment is getting," Sanders says in a new ad airing ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
Moore told Velshi Sunday that recent comments from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in the 2016 general election, and former Vice President Joe Biden indicating they would not support Sanders in a general election matchup with the president are signals that the Democratic elite would prefer another four years of Trump to a Sanders victory.
Clinton has in recent weeks placed blame for her upset loss to Trump at the feet of Sanders, despite the Vermont senator tirelessly criss-crossing the country on Clinton's behalf leading up the 2016 election.
"This divisiveness has not occurred from Bernie," said Moore. "Bernie has been all about unity this whole time as he was back in 2016."
"Once they said that they would not support the Democratic nominee, they are on the Trump bandwagon," Moore added. "They will say that they aren't. But when you say you won't support the Democratic nominee? At that point who are you really for?"
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