• The government has been seized by a ne'er-do-well rich boy and his elderly henchmen . . .
• Our great economic expansion is unraveling faster than a set of Firestones . . .
• Our water is poisoned, the ozone's in shreds, and the SUVs are advancing like a plague of locusts . . .

Remember when everything was looking up? When the government was running at a surplus, pollution was disappearing, peace was breaking out in the Middle East and Northern Ireland, and the Bridge to the Twenty-First Century was strung with high-speed Internet cable and paved with 401K gold?

Well, so much for the future. Michael Moore, the award-winning provocateur behind Roger & Me and the bestseller Downsize This!, now returns to size up the new century -- and that big, ugly special-interest group that's laying waste to the world as we know it: stupid white men. Whether he's calling for United Nations action to overthrow the Bush Family Junta, calling on African-Americans to place whites only signs over the entrances of unfriendly businesses, or praying that Jesse Helms will get kissed by a man, Stupid White Men is Mike's Manifesto on Malfeasance and Mediocrity. Among his targets:

• George W.: "President" of the United States. The Thief-in-Chief. A trespasser on federal land, a squatter in the Oval Office. Send in the Marines! Launch the SCUD missiles! Bring me the head of Antonin Scalia!
• Bill Clinton: One of the best Republican presidents we've ever had.
• The Former Yugoslavia: Bring back Marshall Tito! Nobody in America liked him much when he was alive, but now he looks like Lady Bird Johnson.
• The Idiot Nation: A friggin' stain on a blue dress. That's what captured our attention in the nineties -- along with slow-moving Broncos, six-year-old strangled beauty queens, and Hugh Grant's dating habits.
• Corporate America: There is no recession, my friends: no downturn, no hard times. The rich are wallowing in loot -- and now they want to make sure you don't come a-lookin' for your piece of the pie.

The polls indicate that 60 percent of Americans are "upset or angry" about this land in which we now live -- a land where crooked courts select the president and money rules the day. So if you're feeling the same way and you're wondering what's going to give out first -- the economy, Dick Cheney's pacemaker, or your new VW Beetle -- here's the book for you.

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