RollingStone.com: On The Cover: Michael Moore's Patriot Act

RollingStone.com: "Back in the mid-eighties, a filmmaker named Kevin Rafferty decided he wanted to include footage from a Ku Klux Klan rally in his documentary about white supremacists. A colleague suggested Rafferty give Michael Moore a call. The editor of a progressive weekly newspaper in his hometown of Flint, Michigan, Moore regularly embarrassed neo-Nazis and other right-wingers on his local radio show, so he was able to set up a lunch date with the grand wizard of the Klan and secure an invitation to a weekend rally.

There would be Klan weddings, cross burnings, lectures. Even a barbecue! But when Rafferty's crew arrived from New York, they got cold feet. 'They didn't want to be on camera, because they thought the Klan guys might come after them,' Moore recalls today. 'So I said, 'I'll do it. I'm not afraid to be on camera.' '

As they say in the business, the kid was a natural. Early in the film, Moore tells a tan, attractive blonde wearing an SS armband, jackboots and a stylish blue neck scarf, 'You don't look like a typical Nazi.'

Flattered, the woman giggles sweetly.

'You could be on a Coppertone commercial,' Moore continues.

The woman beams. Then, though Moore has not asked, she says softly, 'I'm not just against Jewish people. It's also blacks.'"


Mr. America
Cover photo by Albert Watson


By MARK BINELLI
RollingStone