Planet of the Censoring HumansThe campaign to remove Michael Moore’s new documentary from the Internet – led by Moore’s erstwhile progressive “allies” – is a significant advance in the censorship revolution https://taibbi.substack.com/p/planet-of-the-censoring-humans
Matt Taibbi <https://taibbi.substack.com/people/263053> 22 hr 186 122 <https://taibbi.substack.com/p/planet-of-the-censoring-humans/comments> [image: image.jpeg] <https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd8e74695-85f8-4bc8-bb85-6680ecd25041_5472x3648.jpeg> On April 21st, 2020, just before the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, Oscar-winning director/producer Michael Moore released a new movie <https://deadline.com/2020/04/michael-moore-releases-planet-of-the-humans-documentary-eve-earth-day-1202913761/> called *Planet of the Humans. *Directed by Jeff Gibbs, the film is a searing look at the ostensible failures of the environmentalist movement, to which Moore and Gibbs both belonged. “Jeff and I were at the first Earth Day celebrations,” Moore laughs. “That’s how old we are.” Distributed for free on YouTube, the film’s central argument is that the environmentalist movement, fattened by corporate donations, has become seduced by an industrialist delusion. “The whole idea of the film was to ask a question – after fifty years of the environmentalist movement, how are we doing?” recounts Moore. “It looks like, not very well.” Moore and Gibbs challenged the idea that both the planet and humankind’s current patterns of industrial production can be saved through the magic bullet of “renewable energy.” The film shows lurid examples of various deceptions, like the oft-used trick of replacing coal plants with new natural gas plants <https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3>, which are then called “clean” or “green,” or the hideous trend of describing the burning of trees as a “renewable” energy source <https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/debunking_the_biomass_myth/>. Environmentalists denounced the film as riddled with “lies” and “misinformation,” claiming among other things that Moore used old data to discredit green technology. A campaign to remove the film from circulation immediately took shape. “Within 24 hours of it going out on YouTube, people got to work on trying to take the film down,” explains Moore. He immediately started hearing about emails denouncing the film that were being circulated to what seemed like “everyone on the left.” An “action letter” composed by environmentalist Josh Fox was circulated, describing the film as “dangerous, misleading, and destructive” and demanding an “immediate retraction.” Films for Action, an online archive of progressive movies, initially bent to Fox’s demands by taking the film out of its library, only to put it back up a half-day later out of a desire to avoid a “messy debate about censorship <https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/films-for-actions-statement-on-planet-of-the-humans/> .” An intense campaign of editorials followed, and a roughly month later, YouTube actually removed the film <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/may/26/michael-moore-film-planet-of-the-humans-removed-from-youtube?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=88475737&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9Uq0BsKTruyOpILkFdpeG4tdXu8HVHuYLs-_8LpHe4cm>. The platform cited a four-second piece of footage shot by filmmaker Toby Smith that supposedly was a copyright infringement. Moore, who says all his films are “heavily lawyered,” insists the footage was legal under Fair Use laws, which allow the use of portions of copyrighted work without the permission of the owner. (In one of many ironies, Fair Use laws have long been celebrated by progressives as an invaluable tool for journalists and artists). *Click on the link for the rest.* -- If you appreciate News From Underground, please consider making a donation — either a one-time gift or a monthly subscription: http://markcrispinmiller.com/support/ Thank you for your support. Ways to unsubscribe: 1) send a blank email to [email protected] PLEASE NOTE: you must unsubscribe using the SAME email with which you subscribed 2) go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "News From Underground" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/newsfromunderground/CAGxB6W9uVC_ZHzVO81Gnhf3bR6%2Bzfps-oVGDcU90nR9muUj8RQ%40mail.gmail.com.
