The New Media Journal Radio show 4-26-2007

Chicago, Illinois

On April 26, 2007 Michael Westfall, Editor of The American Conservative Worker was interviewed on the The New Media radio show with commentator Frank Salvato. The interview was relative to Westfall’s Paper titled Michael Moore Versus America.

http://www.newmediajournal.us/guest/m_westfall/04142007.htm

 The following is excerpts from that radio program.

 Frank Salvato…

 One of the icons of America’s Fifth Column is filmmaker Michael Moore. Moore has become popular for his documentaries that tend to address just how bad America and especially corporate America is. Moore has established himself as an unabashed anti-American repeatedly slamming, while overseas, the country that facilitated his success. He is an avowed progressive Leftist who champions the one world order over our Constitutional republic. He not only buys into the conspiracy theories of 9-11 being an inside job but he helps to promote them whenever he is asked about the subject. But some who have looked deeper into the inner workings of Moores claims have been surprised to find that Moores contentions are not all they claim to be. It would seem that Moore is no stranger to obscenely cherry picking his facts and skewing his story line in an effort to promote his version of the facts, his anti-American anti-capitalist agenda.

Joining me to talk about Michael Moore and the events and circumstances surrounding Moores making of Roger and Me, the documentary that earned him an academy award is Michael Westfall. 

Mr. Westfall was a blue-collar activist in his younger years. Moore was Mr. Westfalls guest at the GM stockholders meeting when Moore gathered most of his material for the film Roger and Me, a film that Mr. Westfall contends doesn’t portray Moore accurately. Mr. Westfall maintains a web site at http://westfallmike.tripod.com/

Michael, welcome to the program.

Michael Westfall…

Frank, thank you for inviting me.

 FS…

 Before we get into the Moore issue please share with our audience what you did twenty-five years ago in Flint Michigan.

 MW…

I was an activist leader of a group of people that began back in the 1970’s. We saw that we were losing our jobs. We were losing them for various reasons from automation to global sourcing and downsizing. We called it corporate restructuring. We formed a group back in 1976 of grass roots workers at the largest truck plant in the world, which was Chevrolet Truck and Bus. There were roughly 7200 workers at that plant at that time. Flint had the largest group of workers in General Motors, which was the premier industry in America. The UAW had roughly 1600000 members. It has been whittled down to 600000 today.

We began sending out information to Universities like MIT, CIT and Carnegie Mellon. I began writing monthly columns. I founded the group so I became chairman. We began organizing other groups in other cities and in other states.

We weren't just talking about auto jobs. It was jobs across America. It was America’s middle-income jobs.  The rich were getting richer, the poor were getting poorer and the middle class was beginning to be annihilated.   

 I started doing television. I formed many people in my group into two person committees. They started out doing the media events and all of the TV and community event shows. 

 FS…

So really you were ahead of your time confronting the problem of outsourcing.

 MW:

We were futurists. I worked for a period of time for the Department of Education. It is really an interesting story because I was just a blue-collar truck driver. I worked on a six person advisory board for the department of Education. We had a million dollar budget to do a comprehensive videodisk on automation, which was going to eliminate American jobs.

One of the interesting stories , (while on the board in Alexandria Virginia), was that one of the members on our board was a person by the name of Marvin Cetron who was in charge of Forecasting International. He and I did a lot of jousting. He would literally scream and holler on how technology was not going to eliminate middle class jobs and I said that it would.

He was proven wrong.  In every assembly plant and in most manufacturing industries now most of the paint workers are gone and all of the welders are gone. They have been replaced with robots. We were ahead of our time and unfortunately they were not listening to us.

 FS…

Lets go back to the beginning. How did you come to meet Michael Moore? How did you come to facilitate his entry into the GM stockholders meetings?

 MW…

Ralph Nader learned of us and started writing about our material ( in 1981)  because by then we were all over the world. People would fly in from other countries to meet me. Ralph connected and I became involved in the GM property tax assessment reduction fight back in 1985. I invited Ralph to Flint to one of our backyard meetings, which consisted of a large group of workers and a large group of community members. General Motors was demanding property tax assessment reductions of millions of dollars from twenty different communities.  Sixty-six cents of every dollar would have had to come back from our schools.

It was just a tremendous thing.

So Ralph come to Flint and Michael Moore was in the audience. Ralph had sent Jim Musselman, who was on Ralph’s staff in Washington to work with us on this issue. Moore became friends of Jim Musselman. Jim Musselman introduced Moore to me. Musselman asked me if I would include Moore in to do some of the things we were doing such as panel meetings or stockholders meeting, and I did.

I took him (Moore) for two years to the stockholders meeting. Ironically Frank, the whole premise of Roger and Me was that Roger Smith wouldn’t talk to him. Roger Smith talked to him! He talked to him in depth, two years in a row in two stockholders meetings where he went as my guest. He  didn’t even know that he could get in but he got in as my guest.Any question he wanted to ask he could and did.

 FS…

So when Moore would go to these meetings that were facilitated by you and your group he had free access to Roger, and he contended that he didn’t in his documentaries, and really all of his questions were answered.

 MW…

We were time limited. What we did is that I would take down several people with me. I was a radical militant activist back then, I am a Christian conservative today. I have changed although many of the things (we did) back then I still believe in.

I would have my people tie up the microphones. We were talking about apartheid; we were talking about corporate restructuring and the exploitation of foreign workers. We were talking about a lot of issues and the issues were deep. I believe we had two or three minutes per microphone and I would have my people rotate.

 FS…

In your piece Michael Moore Versus America which can be read in the Fifth Column section of the New Media Journal you say that Moore usurped the Flint activists work and portrayed himself as the solo activist, please explain.

 MW…

 Well, all you have to do is look at Roger and Me. Your point actually didn’t come from me it came from Jim Musselman his best friend in Flint.

Ralph, a film producer and I were working on a film about Flint back in 1985. Jim became friends with Moore and Jim shared the ideas in that film (with Moore).  Jim said that the end result was Roger and me.

 FS….

So basically, Michael Moores documentary which he portrays someone who is the lone wolf in this crusade…

 MW…

That was false

 FS…

 is basically a character that is derived of all the work that a whole group of people that you had…

 MW…

We had so many workers, we had educators, we had people in the church and we had Universities. There were so many people who were working. Michael Moore was a bystander. He was an observer. He was in occasionally when we invited him to speak on a panel and I think you can count on one hand how many times that was. Michael Moore did not do any of the rallies…we did them. He didn’t do any of the demonstration…we did them. He didn’t have his neck on the line, ours was. I was discharged three times. Michael Moore didn’t work for GM.

Michael said that Roger never answered him. Michael Moore went with me and Roger Smith sent me three personal letters answering every question that I asked and I asked him some very pointed questions. When we went to these meetings we were not down there playing. We were trying to nail him ( Roger Smith) against the wall because these were very serious issues.

 FS…

So basically Michael Moores whole contention behind Roger and Me is based on nothing truthful.

 MW…

Michael Moore came across as the Don Quiote of Flint. Michael Moore wasn’t from Flint…he was from Davison. He ran his business out of Davison. He would come over and speak when we would ask him to speak and like I say, that may have been four times.  He made and got rich on the Roger film. He hit the jackpot.

The film Nader and I were going to do intended for all of the money(from profits) to go back to the community. Not a penny was going to go into our pockets. We had a suffering community and we put the cause above ourselves, we didn’t put ourselves above the cause.

 FS…

When we come back we will get deeper into the disturbing and narcissistic personality of Michael Moore and how his radical ego moved on to all things political. We are speaking with Michael Westfall and he does know a thing or two about Michael Moore. We will be right back after this….

 FS…

Welcome back to the New Media Journal on blog talk radio. I am your host Frank Salvato. We continue now with Michael Westfall New Media writer and someone who knows a thing or two about American Fifth column darling Michael Moore. Michael Moores films have brought him great success in Hollywood and great notoriety within liberal circles especially within the progressive left. Soon after his success in Film he entered into the political arena. In 2004 he got involved in the Kerry campaign for president, much to the demise of Ralph Nader. Michael, you have some insight into this, can you expound on what happened when Michael Moore got into the political arena?

MW…

He (Moore) was accepted as a high profile guest at the 2004 Democratic national convention. The Democrats opened their arms to him. He was prominently seated in a box with former President Jimmy Carter and his wife. He was showcased as a standup celebrity, front man and poster boy of the Democratic Party for the Kerry Presidential run. Actually, in my opinion, he is a strong example of the bankrupt values and confused morality of the Democrats on the liberal left.

Frank can I add one point…

 FS…

Sure

 MW…

I don’t want to forget this. Michael Moore has traveled around the world. He has discredited America by calling us dumb, stupid and embarrassing.  Now we're not dumb, we're not stupid and we are not embarrassing. He has stated that those killing out soldiers in Iraq could be considered as equals to our own Revolutionary war heroes and that they will win. Now what do the children of the military heroes coming back in body bags think of this?

Now some of us chose to show our patriotism in other ways. We talk about Hollywood, and I am one of the biggest critics of Hollywood because I run a Christian Conservative site. When I hear of the profanity coming out of Hollywood, with the nudity and violence it is just terrible for our culture and for our values.

I do want to stand up and say that there are people in Hollywood that are not that way and some of them are participants on our site. One of them is my friend Jonathan Flora who is a regular on our site. He is a film producer and director at Disney. He is on a board with Chuch Norris, Ernest Borgnine, Pat Boone and others for a special GI Film Festival celebrating the successes and sacrifices of our American Military in the medium of film. Now this is going to be a three day military film festival held May 26-28 in Washington D.C.

I am asking all that hear this to please go to our American Conservative Worker website front page

http://michaelwestfall.tripod.com/index.html

and click on the GI Film Festival box on the right for the full information. Show your respect and admiration for our military and their families who sacrifice so much for us by supporting this GI Washington Film Festival. I would appreciate it if they would. Thank you.

 FS…

Absolutely and when we get closer to that day we will make sure to put some promos on for it to maximize the turn out. It is a very good idea. It is much needed in this time of turmoil especially where our troops are concerned.

 MW…

Yes. Thank you.

 FS…

 Michael Moore was actually a very big proponent of John Kerry and this kind of surprises me since Ralph Nader was the one that practically introduced him into the social circles in which he runs now.

 MW…

If it wasn’t for Ralph there would be no Michael Moore now, (that is )Ralph and Jim Musselman.

Jim Musselman now runs a record production company, which is very successful. I think he is really socially adept. Now ,I don’t necessarily agree with some of their politics because I am now a Christian conservative but I do think they mean well.They created Michael Moore.

Michael moore is an illusion. He is smoke and mirrors.

 FS…

One of his things I found very hypocritical, one of the issues that he speaks out on regularly is guns. He is for gun control and it came to my attention that the people that do security for him are pretty much armed.

 MW…

Yes. It is my understanding that one of them was arrested for an incident with a gun. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,144921,00.html

 There is a film out right now called Manufacturing Dissent. Are you familiar with that?

 FS…

By the Canadian husband and wife team?

 MW…

It is. Do you mind talking about that?

 FS…

Sure go ahead.

 MW…

 There has been a lot of attempts to define Michael both in books and films. A lot of people have asked me to participate and I have refused because frankly a lot of them are just Leftists. The film (Manufacturing Dissent) just premiered in Texas March 10^th. Clips of my people are all through it and I am in it too. In fact the only time Phil Donahue had Michael Moore against the ropes was when he was talking about me.

But, I am not happy with the movie. It is full of Moores and others continual profanities. This will guarantee that conservative audiences will never view it. I don’t think it is necessary to have such profanity in a movie.

Most importantly I think that Manufacturing Dissent only begins to address the substance and magnitude of the authentic Flint workers who make up the much more important and deeper story because that is what real the story is. I mean they (workers) are the ones that were in the communities that were actually fighting .

One of the books that did come out that I was in total agreement with was David Hardy’s book, which was titled A Big Fat Stupid White Man which was on the New York best sellers list for several weeks. I helped him with part of it and we are in the book for several pages.

What you get when you get these people who come in to do these movies, and I know that they are not happy with me for what I am saying because I am in it, but a lot of the people who do this material are the kind who come in after the fact. They lack the accurate historical knowledge so they must educate themselves on the content. So they develop their own assumptions, which in important ways may or may not be based on historical accuracies. Then they use the information they collect that proves and supports their story lines. So they really ignore and skim over important factual information that is brought to their attention. If it runs contrary to their politics, and they are generally liberal, or if it runs contrary to their contrived film plot or political persuasions or ideologies …they don’t use it. Now, thus far, the few films that have been out on Moore have tended to impersonate Moore as they become the narrator stars of their own films. By ignoring or downplaying Moores history these people are really only muddying up the water and this really only adds to Moores phony mystic.

Many are Leftist, like Mike, and hold him up in high esteem. They fully agree with his politics so of course they are going to be paternalistic, to the left and adjust their assumptions accordingly. They really don’t get the full story because they are not after it.

 FS…

Now, getting past the facade and as you say the mystic of Michael Moore, since his success with Roger and Me and his embracement of the Hollywood left he has come out as quite a progressive Leftist activist and he is starting to have a profound affect on campuses across the United States. In your piece that we published you opined about that.  Can you expand on that?

 MW…

His slacker campaign goes into the campuses, and the (profane)language that he has used and his bribes to our  kids as he throws out (under) shorts to them to get them to vote. Well how does he want them to vote? You know he wants them to vote his way.

I just wonder where the ethics are. Where are the universities heads, I mean where is the morality in our nation, what is going on here? We are talking about our children here who are our next generation of leaders.

 FS…

He has also embraced some of the more controversial leaders over seas during the tenure of the war that we are fighting. He hasn’t had anything good to say about the United States.

With his influence on the college campuses and his influences from those societies that border on the progressive left, the minds that are impressionable on the moderate sphere, how much of an influence do you think he has?

 MW…

I think he is an influence. People hold him up as an icon. Some view him as a religious icon almost, I believe. I think he has damaged America. When he goes around to other countries and cuts us down what position does that put our soldiers in? When we go to war we have to win. We don’t go into war to sacrifice our people. We want our people at home supporting those troops who are fighting for us. Consider the families, the wives , the children of these soldiers and then you have people walking around saying that the people fighting them are equal to our revolutionary war heroes. It is incredible.

 FS…

In the few seconds that we have left can you tell us what you believe it is going to take for our culture and our society to finally wake up and finally see the Michael Moores of this world for what they really are or do you think it is to far gone already?

 MW…

It is going to take Jesus Christ. We need to get back to the Bible. This country has gotten too far away from the Bible. Today, everything is OK, there is no right there is no wrong, there are no absolutes, we are murdering our babies through abortion, our culture is disintegrating, some of our biggest singers are singing of gay love and same sex marriage is being pushed.Everything is being pushed to become a centralist nation. America will never exist that way. We need to get back to the Bible.

 FS…

His name is Michael Westfall, he maintains a website at www.michaelwestfall.tripod.com and he does know a thing or two about the disingenuous nature of Michael Moore and the Fifth Column in the United States.

 You can read his piece titled Michael Moore Versus America in the Fifth Column Section of the New Media Journal. Michael, Thank you for coming on the program tonight.

 MW…

 I want to thank you for having me on your program and may God continue to bless and protect our great nation, our families and our culture.