I was wandering through Wikipedia today, reading about a few different subjects, when I came across Michael Moore’s Oscar acceptance speech. Among other things, it consisted of Moore saying, “shame on you,” to the president, and the government of the United States.

“Shame on you.” I’ve got to ask, Michael, did you think that was going to work? That Bush would think, ‘hey, he’s right, I’m doing shameful things, maybe I should stop?”

Though I find myself in agreeance with Moore’s general positions, I also find myself having huge issues with how he says them. He uses details in his arguments that are usually true, but also carefully picked. He edits his footage to imply truths that facts or experience do not bear out, overemphasizing a point with his somber narration, rather than letting his truths be stated simply as truths. But ‘shame on you’ takes the cake. Saying it does not impose any kind of moral code on those who do it, and in the cases of faceless corporations and densely bureaucratic governments, there is no internal morality to adhere to. It implies a higher moral position, while capitulating power, admitting that someone else has to bring these brigands to justice, because we’re just too gosh darn small.

I noticed it when I was walking a picket line last summer. I agreed that we were under lockout measures, that the company had done something wrong. But when the scabs crossed the line, or when the television cameras arrived and started rolling, the line became a mob, shouting ‘SHAME’ at the company, its representatives, and their former co-workers who crossed the line. What’s the point? It’s not going to change anyone’s minds, and only serves in both admitting your victim status and your powerlessness to stop it. It’s asking for a higher power to come in and punish the bully.

This is an endemic problem for the left wing, for those who value truth, honesty, individual freedoms. Intellectuals and protesters alike accept the system of being on the outside looking in. Making their statements of injustice but not providing solutions. Or if they are suggesting anything, they still refrain from doing any of it. Crying ‘shame’ and hoping someone does something about it.

Of course, I’m in the same bloody boat, so I’ve got to screed myself here. I observed this, and this screed is not much more than crying about them, too. Not doing anything.

I don’t have all, or even very many of the answers about how to fix any of this, but I am getting tired of being told about it, without anyone doing anything else.

It’s a damn shame.

What is the screed, of this current day?

Watching George Bush vacillate.

I thought I’d enjoy it. I thought it would be the peculiar enjoyment, the schadenfreude, of watching someone I dislike show up their own incompetence. But it only made me mad.

Let’s avoid the details, because they really only cloud the issue. The bones of it lie as thus: a White House individual leaked information that outed a CIA agent. Leaving aside the mess of motives (which include an implied attempt to discredit critics of the ‘Invasion of Iraq’ passport, the elusive WMDs) Bush has, in his ideology-peppered speeches, has said that the leak was actually intentional. He leaked it, or rather in a wonderful sense of historical revisionism, says that he declassified it, because he thought the American Public had a right to know.

Now, correct this crazy canuck if he’s wrong, but I was under the impression that the White House had a fairly robust press corps, that are usually at the President’s beck and call. Hell, even if he doesn’t want to say something in an actually press release, he can toss it into the many speeches that are given at the many events he attends.

Is it illegal to accuse the president of lying? Or to openly criticize? I’m still waiting for the worldwide, ‘oh, come on! You can’t expect us to believe that, can you?’ But it never seems to come. I suppose, along with the screed, I’ve got a demand for the press of the world: call this out. Don’t meekly parrot what you record or videotape, but actually examine. Investigate. Bring back the stereotype of the hard-nosed reporter, looking for a great story. This is a great story, an American political farce, just waiting to be snapped up. Be brave.