No one was having sex in Buffalo this past Saturday after controversial documentary director Michael Moore visited UB as part of the 21st annual Distinguished Speaker Series.
Wearing his characteristic jeans and t-shirt and a Buffalo baseball cap, Moore informed as well as entertained the audience with the same style of social and political commentary that made him famous.
He was introduced by Distinguished English Professor Bruce Jackson who, according to President John B. Simpson, should not be confused with Moore himself.
"I asked the president of the university to give me one of those Lee Ballenger, Columbia University style introductions," he said.
Moore began with Buffalo humor which continued throughout the night while explaining that UB is the first school outside of Michigan that he has visited in three years.
According to Moore, not only did Buffalo provide the most staff for production of his latest documentary "Sicko", but the tape of President Richard Nixon's conception of the idea of HMO's which was featured in the film was found by UB alumnus and former editor in chief of The Spectrum, George Zornick.
While discussing his political views, Moore hung is head and claimed that no president has contributed more to the "death of hope" than President Bush. He described the sense of utter despair he observes in those who just a few years ago would eagerly stand up and fight for their country.
"If we lived in a more just time, in a more enlightened time... certainly George Bush should have been impeached by now," he said.
Moore then meandered to the issue of education. He noted a poll done by National Geographic of the knowledge of young people in America. According to the poll, 80 percent of 18-25 year olds could not find Iraq on a map, 16 percent could not find Great Britain on a map and 11 percent could not find the United Sates on a map.
"We have trained our children to be test takers but we have not educated them," he said. "We are an idiot nation."
According to Moore, the statute of learning, the three R's (reading, writing, and arithmetic, of which only one actually beings with "R," he protested) have become the three C's: consistency, complacency and conformity.
"Walk into any pre-school and look at (the children), they are active and ready to learn," he said. "Look at them at 17 years old in high school, their minds are numb and deadened."
Moore feels that as children grow, the support and encouragement provided by parents are quickly replaced by a cold and unforgiving education system whose only concern seems to be receiving state funding.
"As soon as you walk into the assembly line, if you don't do well you end up in the 'black bird' group," he said. "It's incumbent for those of you in college to throw off what has been given to you in the assembly line and learn to think for yourselves."
One highlight of the event was a trivia game Moore staged called "Stump the Yank," with the premise that the dumbest Canadian is still smarter than the smartest American. The participants were American Valerie Yawien, with a 3.96 GPA and Canadian Jake Restenskin, a high school junior with a B-/C average.
Moore asked each seemingly easy questions: for Restenskin, Who is the president of the United States? For Yawien, Who is the president of Canada? While Restenskin knew that out current president is George Bush, Yawien was unable to tell the audience that Canada's prime minister is Stephen Harper.
Restenskin knew that the US capital is Washington DC, while Yawien sampled Toronto, Montreal and Quebec as answers before the audience began to call out Ottawa as the capital of Canada.
Finally, Moore asked Restenskin to sing the first lines of the American national anthem and Yawien to sing the first lines of the Canadian national anthem.
Moore moved on to show reels of deleted scenes from "Sicko" which delved into the issue of health care. One reel featured an interview with former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine Dr. Marsha Angell, who spoke about the health care system during the invention of the first Polio vaccination and how it was available for all who were in need.
"There is no patent. Can you patent the sun?" said Jonas Salk, inventor of the Polio vaccine, in a video clip.
According to Angell, though pharmaceutical companies currently dominate the rights for the majority of drugs on the market, the companies themselves do little innovative research. It is done by universities and by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
"Taking care of sick people is a means to an end of taking care of stockholders," Angell said.
Moore then discussed differences between Canada's socialized system and America's privatized system.
"The reason we don't have to wait as long for a knee replacement as Canadians do is that we have removed 50 million people in line in front of us," he said. "Why do we piss on each other by setting up a system where so many people have to go without, where so many people have to suffer?"
Moore then showed other deleted reels from "Sicko." One was of an interview with Tony Benn, a member of Great Britain's parliament for 51 years. Benn is a self-professed socialist who worked in the heart of development of Britain's socialized health care system.
"A healthy nation, an educated nation is for the benefit of everyone," he said.
Benn talked about the ideals of democracy and how the capitalist culture has strayed far from them. He gave an example of how a true and just democracy is upheld.
"An old woman can put and x on a piece of paper and put it in a box and destroy a nation without killing anyone," he said.
According to Benn, the system should have to change for the people instead of the people changing for the system. He described the chain of thought that occurs when a radical idea of change is introduced.
"Someone has an idea, and first they are ignored," he said. "Then if they continue they are mad, bonkers. Then if they continue they are dangerous. If they continue still and succeed, there is not a person who wouldn't say they knew about (the idea) first."
The final deleted scene reel was a depiction of Norway, which according to Moore, he could not put into the documentary because its ideals were even "crazier" than those of other socialist countries such as France and Britain, which did make it into the film.
According to Moore, Norway is a country that has the best health care and education systems in the world as well as the lowest crime rate. It is also second only to Sweden with most women in government. Norway provides its citizens with benefits such as cars for the handicapped that cannot use public transportation; one year paid maternity leave for mothers and vacations for those recovering from illnesses.
"Oh my god," Moore exclaimed at one point when he saw himself on-screen. "Tell the up-close camera guy to take the night off... people want to have sex after this."
The event ended with a Q&A segment where Moore satisfied several audience questions such as: while he is not endorsing anyone for the presidential election he would like to see Al Gore get in the race and that he thinks that education should be free from kindergarten through college. The essence of Moore's message was felt when a conservative audience member asked him how he feels about delivering biased propaganda through his films.
"The propaganda that we have to deal with in this country is the nightly news and the daily newspapers," he said. "I am the anti propaganda."
Photo: Courtesy of SUNY
