In a post entitled “Life Among the 1%,” Moore told the story of how he happened upon his millions when he sold his independent documentary film, Roger & Me, to Time Warner. Having sold it for three million dollars, he narrates, he spent much of that money on giving back to his community and paying taxes, not before paying his debts, helping his family, and buying some property. Stocks, he maintained, were an evil “casino, and so he abstained from investing there: “I believed the concept of making money off your money had created a greedy, lazy class who didn’t produce any product, just misery and fear among the populace.” None of this is news, though the fact that the 22nd anniversary of selling Roger & Me is only a few weeks away is pretty astonishing.

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The meat and potatoes of the piece comes further below, however, where Moore explains how his success has nothing to do with capitalism, and how he could so vehemently pursue the interests of a class to which he has not belonged in decades:

I do very well — and for a documentary filmmaker, I do extremely well. That, too, drives conservatives bonkers. “You’re rich because of capitalism!” they scream at me. Um, no. Didn’t you take Econ 101? Capitalism is a system, a pyramid scheme of sorts, that exploits the vast majority so that the few at the top can enrich themselves more. I make my money the old school, honest way by making things. Some years I earn a boatload of cash. Other years, like last year, I don’t have a job (no movie, no book) and so I make a lot less. “How can you claim to be for the poor when you are the opposite of poor?!” It’s like asking: “You’ve never had sex with another man — how can you be for gay marriage?!” [...]

Exactly — [Kanye West]‘s down there demanding that his taxes be raised. That, to a right-winger, is the definition of insanity. To everyone else, we are grateful that people like him stand up, even if and especially because it is against his own personal financial interest. It is specifically what that Bible those conservatives wave around demands of those who are well off.

Honesty suits Moore well. While “um, no” doesn’t quite explain how capitalism isn’t directly responsible for Moore’s success– try filming the equivalent of Roger & Me about the exploitation of manual laborers in China– his position is far better represented by the idea that, having come from a modest background, he has not forgotten the plight of those around which he grew up, and that plight directs his cause. Nothing hurts a cause more than those being courted having their intelligence insulted the way most Americans felt with Moore flat-out lied and said he wasn’t part of “the 1%,” and nothing quite helps it like a frank explanation of where the ideas fueling it come from that treats said audience like adults.

There is an additional fascinating element to his explanation: Moore admits religion plays a role in the way he understands politics in a way Americans are only accustomed to seeing on their right. A statement like “the Bible says I should do XYZ” is a surefire way to sink a political career in many parts of the country; no informed American likes collusion of church and state. Liberals, particularly, shirk away from shameless declarations of faith. It’s a smart move on Moore’s part, though, of course, one that comes with several reservations. For one, if the Bible is the launchpad for Moore’s belief system, how does he explain the near 100 million deaths and “disappearances” socialism/communism have caused around the world? We need not even go that far– how does Moore explain the fact that Marxists governments universally ban the practice of religion by their subjects? Whatever happened to “religion is the opiate of the masses?”

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Needless to say, this statement gets Moore nowhere with most Americans who understand the way capitalism functions and are grateful for having been born in the best of all known political systems. But it does bestow upon Moore– an easy figure to revile, possibly intentionally– a humanity and clarity of thought that has been woefully absent since he became one of the recognizable leaders of the Occupy movement. The PR gods certainly smile upon Moore’s somewhat sulky admission that being rich is nothing to be ashamed of. It gets better from here.

*Let’s not kid ourselves here. Addendum: the term “communist” is not in any way meant as an ad hominem attack, but merely an accurate representation of Moore’s beliefs as he has articulated them. From the website of the Communist Party, USA:

The Communist Party stands for the interests of the American working class and the American people. It stands for our interests in both the present and the future. Solidarity with workers of other countries is also part of our work. We work in coalition with the labor movement, the peace movement, the student movement, organizations fighting for equality and social justice, the environmental movement, immigrants rights groups and the health care for all campaign.

But to win a better life for working families, we believe that we must go further. We believe that the American people can replace capitalism with a system that puts people before profit – socialism.

We call for nationalization of the banks, railroads, and industries like steel and auto. Everyone who wants to work should be guaranteed a job or get unemployment payments until she/he can find a job. We say put the unemployed to work at union wages on massive public works programs to rebuild our cities, provide affordable housing for the homeless, build mass transit, and clean up the environment!

These views appear consistent with ideals that Moore has repeatedly expressed in the past. They are not inherently evil or anti-American, and to insinuate as such is an insult to many patriotic Americans who identify with communist values.

Moore, for his part, made all the right noises about taking rape accusations seriously, but also failed to mention the protest, or his own actions that sparked it. This, despite the fact that the central premise of the protest was that Moore engage them in a way that Roger and Me antagonist Roger Smith had never engaged Moore. A quick perusal of the #MooreAndMe hashtag demonstrates that they overwhelmingly wanted that engagement.

This afternoon, though, the creator and spearhead of the protest, Sady Doyle, revealed that Michael Moore did, indeed, know that she existed:

But you know we fought, and we fought, and I was tired, and I was scared, and I was crying, and I was outside the tower, and I knew we had to not go away. And then, well… then he came down.

That was in my Direct Messages inbox. On my Twitter. At the bottom of the 200 unanswered e-mails; I almost ignored it, almost blitzed right past it, because it was on Twitter and those are just new “follow” notifications.

I got a “thank you” from Michael Moore. You did. We all did.

Obviously, as a chief defender of WikiLeaks, Moore is in no position to complain about the publication of his private message, and probably assumed it would become public. I can only guess at his motivations at keeping the message private, but in doing so, he gets to maintain the “official story” that he respects rape accusations, and his dismissive comments to Olbermann get to remain in the Memory Hole.

Despite the inherent hypocrisy in this veil of secrecy (more akin to a fig leaf), the protest’s creator takes a mature, big-picture view. Doyle is rightly proud of the difference her protest made, but goes on to take the measure of the imperfection of this result (so far):

The mountain moved, like, three inches to the left. If you weren’t looking closely, you wouldn’t notice that it had moved at all. You definitely wouldn’t think to thank or acknowledge the incredibly hard work of the people who moved it. But we moved a mountain. We did the impossible. We went from just a random bunch of frustrated feminists, a random bunch of people on Twitter, to a force capable of changing the rape apologism in the narrative of one of the world’s biggest news stories.

The mountain moved. The man came down from the tower. And we still live in a rape culture; we’re still not done fighting it; the narrative around Assange, in particular, is still hugely misogynist and hugely dangerous for those two women and will still encourage rape survivors not to report. We didn’t get a full apology and correction from Michael Moore; we didn’t get a full apology and correction from Keith Olbermann; neither of them have donated to the many rape crisis and anti-rape organizations to which we’ve provided links; heck, we didn’t even get credit on air. But we know what we’re capable of now. And that is immensely important.

The timing could not be more suspicious. The man accused says he’s being pursued for political reasons. But even if you’re suspicious about the timing, there are two women who went to the police with what are essentially date-rape charges against this guy.

This doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker.

Can your suspicion about the forces arrayed against Julian Assange and Wikileaks — your suspicion about the timing and pursuit of these charges — coexist with respect for the women making these accusations against him and with a commitment to take rape allegations seriously, even when the person accused is someone that for other reasons you like?

To be fair to Maddow, she’s in a tough spot, as her MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann emerged as a focal point of the protest, but she should have asked this question directly to Moore. Instead, she asked him to explain, once again, why he posted $20,000 in bail money for Assange. In answering that question, Moore volunteered:

Every woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted or raped has to be, must be, taken seriously. Those charges have to be investigated to the fullest extent possible. For too long, and too many women have been abused in our society, because they were not listened to, and they just got shoved aside. . . .So I think these two alleged victims have to be treated seriously and Mr. Assange has to answer the questions.

This was a sharp departure from the remarks that started the protest, and no doubt directly attributable to it, but it was also a subversion of the premise of #MooreAndMe. The protest derived its name from Moore’s debut film, Roger & Me, in which Moore spends the entire film trying to get GM CEO Roger Smith to just talk to him about the harm he’d done. Moore didn’t do that, he pretended the whole thing never happened.

As for the goals of the #MooreAndMe protest, while they commendably got Moore to change his rhetoric, there’s still apparently work to be done:

Please tweet @MMFlint, using the hashtag #Mooreandme, until we have an explanation from Michael Moore, and preferably an apology, and preferably $20,000, donated to an anti-sexual-assault organization of his choice.

You told us the little guy had to stand up, Mr. Moore. You told us the authority had to be held accountable for harming communities. You told us that the Big Lies were worth exposing. But you’re promoting the Big Lie, you’re harming our community, and this time around, the little guy is us.

We can be loud. We can be persistent. I hope you’re prepared.

The balance of the interview featured some smart, tough questions from Maddow over Moore’s Assange idolatry. Here’s the full interview, in two parts, from MSNBC:

Part Two:

But for the first time since Roger & Me, Moore finally set foot on GM property…without being escorted off.

On Sunday night, Moore premiered Capitalism: A Love Story in Detroit, booking four theaters at the GM Renaissance Center. Drama! According to Moore, when GM found out that the booking was for him, they tried to renege on the booking. Compromise: Movie could premiere as planned — sans cameras, and sans Moore.

Moore conducted interviews at a nearby Marriott — but after, he went into the GM Renaissance Center anyway. On Twitter he called it “my first official visit inside General Motors headquarters” — I’m not sure of the geography, if the Renaissance Center is part of the GM HQ, but either way, if there’s a town that could use a renaissance it’s probably Detroit. As Moore pointed out in the movie, even Cleveland makes fun of it.

Either way, here is the video of Michael Moore’s first offical visit inside GM headquarters after bedeviling them for a full 20 years, taken Sunday and posted today:

…and here is a report from local Detroit station WDIV, who actually were apparently escorted off of GM property, before the premiere, despite having been invited to cover the premiere. Has GM not learned anything in 20 years?

…and, just for good measure, here’s the Cleveland video featured in Moore’s film. It would be sad if it weren’t so funny. Or vice versa.