By Don Irvine ——Bio and Archives--December 8, 2011
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Morgan: Because I’ve asked for a few tweets, and in a few of them you say last time he came on your show, you said to him you weren’t the 99% and he had the bare faced cheek to say, “I’m in the 99%.” Have you revised—because that blew up and it became a big thing, and you looked like were wriggling a bit. What is the reality about you and your wealth? Moore: I think Republicans and then right-wingers, they blow me up into this kind of really mythical, scary character of, “Oh, he’s got all this money, he’s got all this, you know, he’s controlling all this, him and George Soros. Now Warren Buffett’s in on it!” You know, it’s like—and I don’t want to dissuade them of that, I read on the internet last week that they—this is on the right-wing blogs—that I’ve got 50 million dollars. And I’m going, “Wow, that would be like really cool if I had 50 million, but don’t, like, deny it, because—“ Morgan: How much have your movies grossed in total? Do you know? Moore: I don’t have a number right offhand, but I—
Morgan: What would you guess, though? Moore: Half a billion dollars. Morgan: Right, so you’ve obviously got the worst agent in the world or you must have made millions! You must be wealthy. Moore: it’s true, like Bowling for Columbine, I literally not only didn’t make any money on it, I didn’t even get a paycheck. I mean, I literally, I made that movie for free. Morgan: Let me make a suggestion. You wouldn’t dispute that you have earned millions of dollars. Moore: That is correct. My first film, I made 3 million dollars. They gave me a check from this company right here, thank you, whoever you are. That was in 1989. I’ve had like three or four good years, where Fahrenheit 9/11, my book Stupid White Men— Morgan: How many years— Moore: In those years, I would be in the 1%.Morgan then got Moore to admit that if he were to die tomorrow he would “leave a good old pile” behind, something very unlikely for most of the 99% that Moore has claimed to be a part of. In an effort to separate himself from the 1%, Moore also explained that it wasn’t just about the money but about the mentality and attitude of, shall we say, the more liberal members of that group who have said that they would be willing to pay more in taxes. Moore: I think when—when people in the Occupy movement talk about the 1%, we’re not simply talking about just because you make that money. It’s about the mentality and the attitude because obviously there’s many people in the 1%—rock ‘n roll stars, people here in Hollywood, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, people like that—who have said, “We should pay more taxes.” You know, (video cuts out for next 2 seconds) mentality, and so I think that’s where the—it’s not just, it’s not a literal thing of the—obviously anybody who does well and wants to raise their taxes and make sure that those who are suffering right now have a better life, then that’s all— In one fell swoop Moore has redefined the 1%, which includes rich liberals such as himself, by excusing their wealth because “they care” about people even if they don’t necessarily spend much of their money helping the poor and downtrodden who supposedly make up most of the 99% that the Occupy movement claims to represent. Credit Morgan for bringing up the wealth issue again with Moore, but he could have and should have held his feet to the fire rather than let him escape with his social justice excuse.
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Don Irvine is the chairman of Accuracy in Media and its sister organization Accuracy in Academia. As the son of Reed Irvine, who launched AIM in 1969, he developed an understanding of media bias at an early age, and has been actively involved with AIM for over 30 years.