Fahrenheit 9/11 coming 6/25

[Matt]

I hope you post a review here.

[Matt]

Looks like more bullshit from Moore.

Moore warns of swing to the right
Harper would `like this to be 51st State'

Filmmaker hopes his movie sways vote

PETER HOWELL
MOVIE CRITIC

Firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore hopes his controversial new work Fahrenheit 9/11 will help stop Conservative Leader Stephen Harper from becoming Prime Minister, along with throwing U.S. President George W. Bush out of office.

Moore came to Toronto last night for the Canadian premiere of his Palme d'Or-winning film, which opens in theatres June 25 and which scorches the Bush administration for its handling of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed them.

And he brought with him a warning that if Canadians swing to the right by electing Harper on June 28, as polls suggest might happen, then dire consequences will follow.

"I can't believe that you guys would think about going in that direction, when we're trying to get out of that direction," Moore told the Star, shortly before heading to the Varsity Cinemas to make a red-carpet arrival at the screening.

"I hope this doesn't happen. Bush is going to throw a party (after the Canadian election). He's going to be a happy man. (Harper) has a big pair of scissors in his hand. He wants to snip away at your social safety net. He'd like this to be the 51st State."

Moore doesn't let the Liberals off the hook, blaming them for creating the mood in Canada where a Conservative government seems plausible.

"They moved to the right (under Martin), which then validated the right."

Moore, 50, has always loved Canada and followed politics here avidly even before his first film, Roger & Me, made him the star of the 1989 Toronto International Film Festival.

He praised former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien for refusing last year to join Bush's "Coalition of the Willing" in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He regrets not giving Chrétien credit for his bravery in Fahrenheit 9/11, much of which takes a critical look at the Iraq invasion and the Bush family's ties to terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

Moore has become much more serious about his political views, so much so that Disney attempted to stop its subsidiary Miramax Films from releasing Fahrenheit 9/11, for fear of upsetting Bush supporters.

The surprise Palme d'Or win last month in Cannes helped Moore find other distributors, including Canadian firms Alliance Atlantis and Lions Gate.

Fahrenheit 9/11 has become one of the year's hottest properties. There have been reports Stateside of right-wing attempts to block or limit distribution of the film, and at least one death threat has been reported against an exhibitor.

Despite all that, Fahrenheit 9/11 is still expected to roll out on hundreds of screens in North America on June 25. That includes 55 in Canada, but the Canadian tally will rise to 140 within two weeks.

Moore said the distributors here originally thought of delaying the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 until after the Canadian federal election, to avoid influencing the outcome — even though the film makes almost no mention of Canada.

"And I said, no, no, no. Even if it's just four days before the election, you've got to get something out there to inspire people to do the right thing here.

"This movie should say to Canadians, you want to join the Coalition of the Willing? Get ready to send your kids over to die for nothing, so that Bush's buddies can line their pockets."

Fahrenheit 9/11 is unrelenting in its criticism of Bush, beginning with his controversial victory over Democratic challenger Al Gore in the 2000 election, a vote that was finally decided by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court.

The film makes powerful connections between the Bush family and with Saudi Arabian oil interests, including the family of Sept. 11 terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Fahrenheit 9/11 is also unstinting in its depiction of the brutality of war, showing grisly scenes of the Iraqi conflict not widely seen on U.S. TV, including the recent desecration of American bodies in Falluja.

"I can't take it any more," Moore said. "That's really the bottom line. I can't stand what Bush has done from the get-go."

But Moore insists that Fahrenheit 9/11 and his vigorous promotional campaigns are meant simply to goad people into getting involved in politics and taking a stand on important issues. They're not a personal vendetta against George W. Bush.

"No, not at all. In fact, if anything, I am grateful to the Bush family. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be a filmmaker. Bush's first cousin, Kevin Rafferty, taught me how to make movies. He was a documentary filmmaker who made The Atomic Café. He shot most of Roger & Me for me ... So if it weren't for a member of the Bush family, I wouldn't have maybe gotten into this.

"I feel badly for George W. I don't think he ever wanted to be president.... He's a frat boy, ne'er-do-well living off daddy's largesse. I want to help him back to that life so he's happier."

Additional articles by Peter Howell

[Matt]

Fahrenheit 9/11 is unrelenting in its criticism of Bush, beginning with his controversial victory over Democratic challenger Al Gore in the 2000 election, a vote that was finally decided by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court.

No kidding? I am shocked!

But Moore insists that Fahrenheit 9/11 and his vigorous promotional campaigns are meant simply to goad people into getting involved in politics and taking a stand on important issues. They're not a personal vendetta against George W. Bush

Sure.

[lukpac]

Looks like more bullshit from Moore.

I'm not sure I follow. Trying to get people to vote to the left is "bullshit"?

[Matt]

Given the "Frat boy" comment and Moores history, I bet the a good part of the movie will consist of personal and distored attacks against Bush.

To get people to vote left, bullshit? No. Lie and distort to get people to vote left (or right) is bs in my opinion.

[chrischross]

Given the "Frat boy" comment and Moores history, I bet the a good part of the movie will consist of personal and distored attacks against Bush.

To get people to vote left, bullshit? No. Lie and distort to get people to vote left (or right) is bs in my opinion.

How do you know this?? Did you find "Bowling For columbine" to be distorted or full of personal attacks?? (OK, I'll admit the visit to Charlton Heston's house was a bit over the top, but that was the exception)

[Matt]

How do you know this?? Did you find "Bowling For columbine" to be distorted or full of personal attacks?? (OK, I'll admit the visit to Charlton Heston's house was a bit over the top, but that was the exception)

How about harrasing Dick Clark a while back? Michael Moore is an elitist and has an agenda to push. His recent remarks lead me to believe this movie will contain Bush attacks. I certainly will stand corrected if I am wrong. I just need to find it within myself to see this movie (it wont be easy).

[lukpac]

Michael Moore is an elitist and has an agenda to push.

How's that different from most people involved in politics?

[Rspaight]

His recent remarks lead me to believe this movie will contain Bush attacks.

I think that's the point.

Ryan

[lukpac]

I think this sums up Moore nicely:

June 22, 2004

Moore kindles outrage along with pocketbook

By Ray Richmond
A historic thing is happening here in Hollywood this week. For the first time perhaps ever, a documentary feature is taking center stage. In a summer season chock full of heroes like Harry Potter and Spider-Man, a schleppy, roly-poly rabble-rouser named Michael Moore is eclipsing them all in terms of sheer marketing might.

In the year of "Super Size Me," a guy who looks like he might dine at McDonald's every day -- and has indeed admitted that it's his favorite cuisine -- is the man of the hour.

Patron saint to the disenfranchised, folk hero to the downtrodden, propaganda minister of the left, Moore has grown to become far more than a mere cult figure. He's a cultural force as both filmmaker and self-appointed guardian of American values.

As the din of promotional racket grows ever more deafening for this Friday's premiere of his controversial "Fahrenheit 9/11," it's clear that he and his impact can't be underestimated.

America, meet your new Oprah.

I mean, think about it. Like Oprah Winfrey, Moore battles his waistline, rose up from modest roots (raising money for his first film, "Roger & Me," through bingo games at his home) and tends to preach to the choir -- in his case, both the left and the left out. And while his fist-shaking rants are surely more abrasive than Winfrey's decidedly classier conduct, Moore tends to inspire a similarly fanatical following.

If Moore looked like Tom Cruise or Hugh Jackman, his whole underdog-taking-on-the-establishment style simply wouldn't fly. But in a nation that's overweight and underdressed, he looks like one of us. So we root for him.

The truth, of course, is that Moore isn't really one of us any longer. In many ways, he embodies the very button-down ethos he so loathes. He's a multimillionaire who may look like a pauper but has done quite well for himself in George W. Bush's America, just as he had in Bill Clinton's. From all appearances, he lives pretty nicely, thanks.

Not that this alone brands Moore as a phony. It simply points up the fact that he is in the money-making business just like the rest of us. This makes it challenging to discern just how much of the "Fahrenheit" firestorm has been savvy, calculated promotion and how much legitimate dogfight.

I'm both a fan and a critic of Moore's, finding him to be at once brave and brilliant as well as stridently self-serving and heavy-handed. While anyone who reads this column even semi-regularly understands that my politics are far closer to his than to President Bush's, Moore's methods and manner often leave me troubled.

There can be little argument that Moore is a heat-seeking egomaniac driven by a transparently partisan agenda. He is adept at creatively stacking the fact deck to make his points.

Be that as it may, Moore is no wacko. He understands precisely what he's doing. And "Fahrenheit" is about to make him one very wealthy grassroots populist indeed.

Some are predicting a $60 million or $70 million windfall for a flick that cost a reported $6 million to make (and $10 million to market) -- if it can find its way into enough theaters. Moore stands to profit handsomely from his anger at the Bush administration.

Not that this makes Moore evil, merely a businessman. It likewise doesn't undercut the validity of his belief. While I doubt that a single film can have nearly the impact on an election as, say, the daily pontifications that emerge from Rush Limbaugh or the Fox News Channel, the "bounce" from this film could stoke momentum for John Kerry in what's expected to be a close race.

Stranger things have happened, and this ain't no bingo game Moore's playing anymore.

[Matt]

How's that different from most people involved in politics?

It is not different than people in politics. But politicians aren't making politically motivated movies, which probably aren't completely truthfull, either.

[lukpac]

It is not different than people in politics. But politicians aren't making politically motivated movies, which probably aren't completely truthfull, either.

Most aren't making movies, no, but they are making speeches and TV ads. And there are plenty of pundits - mostly on the right, but on the left too - on TV, radio, and in print.

It remains to be seen what is and isn't truthful. Supposedly Moore had a bunch of people do fact-checking, FWIW.

I guess I still don't understand what the big deal is. What, a "documentary" shouldn't be biased? Some are certainly more than others, but all are still the director's vision.

[Rspaight]

But politicians aren't making politically motivated movies, which probably aren't completely truthfull, either.

No, they're making *policy*, which can actually do real harm. If Bush made a movie of his policies and it was subjected to the kind of scrutiny F9/11 is being held to, we'd all be better off.

Anyway, you want your semi-legitimate anti-Moore talking points, here ya go. I don't agree with everything in here by a long shot (if I have time at some point I might refute some things), but it's a pretty good summation of the case against the movie.

Unfairenheit 9/11
The lies of Michael Moore.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 21, 2004, at 12:26 PM PT

One of the many problems with the American left, and indeed of the American left, has been its image and self-image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring. How many times, in my old days at The Nation magazine, did I hear wistful and semienvious ruminations? Where was the radical Firing Line show? Who will be our Rush Limbaugh? I used privately to hope that the emphasis, if the comrades ever got around to it, would be on the first of those and not the second. But the meetings themselves were so mind-numbing and lugubrious that I thought the danger of success on either front was infinitely slight.

Nonetheless, it seems that an answer to this long-felt need is finally beginning to emerge. I exempt Al Franken's unintentionally funny Air America network, to which I gave a couple of interviews in its early days. There, one could hear the reassuring noise of collapsing scenery and tripped-over wires and be reminded once again that correct politics and smooth media presentation are not even distant cousins. With Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, however, an entirely new note has been struck. Here we glimpse a possible fusion between the turgid routines of MoveOn.org and the filmic standards, if not exactly the filmic skills, of Sergei Eisenstein or Leni Riefenstahl.

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

In late 2002, almost a year after the al-Qaida assault on American society, I had an onstage debate with Michael Moore at the Telluride Film Festival. In the course of this exchange, he stated his view that Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty. This was, he said, the American way. The intervention in Afghanistan, he maintained, had been at least to that extent unjustified. Something—I cannot guess what, since we knew as much then as we do now—has since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell. Indeed, Osama is suddenly so guilty and so all-powerful that any other discussion of any other topic is a dangerous "distraction" from the fight against him. I believe that I understand the convenience of this late conversion.

Fahrenheit 9/11 makes the following points about Bin Laden and about Afghanistan, and makes them in this order:

1) The Bin Laden family (if not exactly Osama himself) had a close if convoluted business relationship with the Bush family, through the Carlyle Group.

2) Saudi capital in general is a very large element of foreign investment in the United States.

3) The Unocal company in Texas had been willing to discuss a gas pipeline across Afghanistan with the Taliban, as had other vested interests.

4) The Bush administration sent far too few ground troops to Afghanistan and thus allowed far too many Taliban and al-Qaida members to escape.

5) The Afghan government, in supporting the coalition in Iraq, was purely risible in that its non-army was purely American.

6) The American lives lost in Afghanistan have been wasted. (This I divine from the fact that this supposedly "antiwar" film is dedicated ruefully to all those killed there, as well as in Iraq.)

It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which Moore's direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions, that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point. Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not. (They opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn't even let Tony Blair land his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.) Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all—the latter was Moore's view as late as 2002—or we sent too few. If we were going to make sure no Taliban or al-Qaida forces survived or escaped, we would have had to be more ruthless than I suspect that Mr. Moore is really recommending. And these are simply observations on what is "in" the film. If we turn to the facts that are deliberately left out, we discover that there is an emerging Afghan army, that the country is now a joint NATO responsibility and thus under the protection of the broadest military alliance in history, that it has a new constitution and is preparing against hellish odds to hold a general election, and that at least a million and a half of its former refugees have opted to return. I don't think a pipeline is being constructed yet, not that Afghanistan couldn't do with a pipeline. But a highway from Kabul to Kandahar—an insurance against warlordism and a condition of nation-building—is nearing completion with infinite labor and risk. We also discover that the parties of the Afghan secular left—like the parties of the Iraqi secular left—are strongly in favor of the regime change. But this is not the sort of irony in which Moore chooses to deal.

He prefers leaden sarcasm to irony and, indeed, may not appreciate the distinction. In a long and paranoid (and tedious) section at the opening of the film, he makes heavy innuendoes about the flights that took members of the Bin Laden family out of the country after Sept. 11. I banged on about this myself at the time and wrote a Nation column drawing attention to the groveling Larry King interview with the insufferable Prince Bandar, which Moore excerpts. However, recent developments have not been kind to our Mike. In the interval between Moore's triumph at Cannes and the release of the film in the United States, the 9/11 commission has found nothing to complain of in the timing or arrangement of the flights. And Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief of counterterrorism, has come forward to say that he, and he alone, took the responsibility for authorizing those Saudi departures. This might not matter so much to the ethos of Fahrenheit 9/11, except that—as you might expect—Clarke is presented throughout as the brow-furrowed ethical hero of the entire post-9/11 moment. And it does not seem very likely that, in his open admission about the Bin Laden family evacuation, Clarke is taking a fall, or a spear in the chest, for the Bush administration. So, that's another bust for this windy and bloated cinematic "key to all mythologies."

A film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation can only sustain itself by a dizzying succession of smaller falsehoods, beefed up by wilder and (if possible) yet more-contradictory claims. President Bush is accused of taking too many lazy vacations. (What is that about, by the way? Isn't he supposed to be an unceasing planner for future aggressive wars?) But the shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won't recognize the other figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off.

The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the president on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm. More interesting is the moment where Bush is shown frozen on his chair at the infant school in Florida, looking stunned and useless for seven whole minutes after the news of the second plane on 9/11. Many are those who say that he should have leaped from his stool, adopted a Russell Crowe stance, and gone to work. I could even wish that myself. But if he had done any such thing then (as he did with his "Let's roll" and "dead or alive" remarks a month later), half the Michael Moore community would now be calling him a man who went to war on a hectic, crazed impulse. The other half would be saying what they already say—that he knew the attack was coming, was using it to cement himself in power, and couldn't wait to get on with his coup. This is the line taken by Gore Vidal and by a scandalous recent book that also revives the charge of FDR's collusion over Pearl Harbor. At least Moore's film should put the shameful purveyors of that last theory back in their paranoid box.

But it won't because it encourages their half-baked fantasies in so many other ways. We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation." (In fact, Iraq's "sovereignty" was heavily qualified by international sanctions, however questionable, which reflected its noncompliance with important U.N. resolutions.) In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003. I remember asking Moore at Telluride if he was or was not a pacifist. He would not give a straight answer then, and he doesn't now, either. I'll just say that the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once. (Actually, that's not quite right. It is briefly mentioned but only, and smarmily, because of the bad period when Washington preferred Saddam to the likewise unmentioned Ayatollah Khomeini.)

That this—his pro-American moment—was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam's depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible. Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Munich and Rome. Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer. Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (Quite a few Americans of all denominations walk the streets of Jerusalem.) In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally. (Though why should he not?) Should you and I not resent any foreign dictatorship that attempts to kill one of our retired chief executives? (President Clinton certainly took it that way: He ordered the destruction by cruise missiles of the Baathist "security" headquarters.) Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country. In 1993, a certain Mr. Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until the overthrow of Saddam. In 2001, Saddam's regime was the only one in the region that openly celebrated the attacks on New York and Washington and described them as just the beginning of a larger revenge. Its official media regularly spewed out a stream of anti-Semitic incitement. I think one might describe that as "threatening," even if one was narrow enough to think that anti-Semitism only menaces Jews. And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war. On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reported—and the David Kay report had established—that Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition's presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.)

Thus, in spite of the film's loaded bias against the work of the mind, you can grasp even while watching it that Michael Moore has just said, in so many words, the one thing that no reflective or informed person can possibly believe: that Saddam Hussein was no problem. No problem at all. Now look again at the facts I have cited above. If these things had been allowed to happen under any other administration, you can be sure that Moore and others would now glibly be accusing the president of ignoring, or of having ignored, some fairly unmistakable "warnings."

The same "let's have it both ways" opportunism infects his treatment of another very serious subject, namely domestic counterterrorist policy. From being accused of overlooking too many warnings—not exactly an original point—the administration is now lavishly taunted for issuing too many. (Would there not have been "fear" if the harbingers of 9/11 had been taken seriously?) We are shown some American civilians who have had absurd encounters with idiotic "security" staff. (Have you ever met anyone who can't tell such a story?) Then we are immediately shown underfunded police departments that don't have the means or the manpower to do any stop-and-search: a power suddenly demanded by Moore on their behalf that we know by definition would at least lead to some ridiculous interrogations. Finally, Moore complains that there isn't enough intrusion and confiscation at airports and says that it is appalling that every air traveler is not forcibly relieved of all matches and lighters. (Cue mood music for sinister influence of Big Tobacco.) So—he wants even more pocket-rummaging by airport officials? Uh, no, not exactly. But by this stage, who's counting? Moore is having it three ways and asserting everything and nothing. Again—simply not serious.

Circling back to where we began, why did Moore's evil Saudis not join "the Coalition of the Willing"? Why instead did they force the United States to switch its regional military headquarters to Qatar? If the Bush family and the al-Saud dynasty live in each other's pockets, as is alleged in a sort of vulgar sub-Brechtian scene with Arab headdresses replacing top hats, then how come the most reactionary regime in the region has been powerless to stop Bush from demolishing its clone in Kabul and its buffer regime in Baghdad? The Saudis hate, as they did in 1991, the idea that Iraq's recuperated oil industry might challenge their near-monopoly. They fear the liberation of the Shiite Muslims they so despise. To make these elementary points is to collapse the whole pathetic edifice of the film's "theory." Perhaps Moore prefers the pro-Saudi Kissinger/Scowcroft plan for the Middle East, where stability trumps every other consideration and where one dare not upset the local house of cards, or killing-field of Kurds? This would be a strange position for a purported radical. Then again, perhaps he does not take this conservative line because his real pitch is not to any audience member with a serious interest in foreign policy. It is to the provincial isolationist.

I have already said that Moore's film has the staunch courage to mock Bush for his verbal infelicity. Yet it's much, much braver than that. From Fahrenheit 9/11 you can glean even more astounding and hidden disclosures, such as the capitalist nature of American society, the existence of Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex," and the use of "spin" in the presentation of our politicians. It's high time someone had the nerve to point this out. There's more. Poor people often volunteer to join the army, and some of them are duskier than others. Betcha didn't know that. Back in Flint, Mich., Moore feels on safe ground. There are no martyred rabbits this time. Instead, it's the poor and black who shoulder the packs and rifles and march away. I won't dwell on the fact that black Americans have fought for almost a century and a half, from insisting on their right to join the U.S. Army and fight in the Civil War to the right to have a desegregated Army that set the pace for post-1945 civil rights. I'll merely ask this: In the film, Moore says loudly and repeatedly that not enough troops were sent to garrison Afghanistan and Iraq. (This is now a favorite cleverness of those who were, in the first place, against sending any soldiers at all.) Well, where does he think those needful heroes and heroines would have come from? Does he favor a draft—the most statist and oppressive solution? Does he think that only hapless and gullible proles sign up for the Marines? Does he think—as he seems to suggest—that parents can "send" their children, as he stupidly asks elected members of Congress to do? Would he have abandoned Gettysburg because the Union allowed civilians to pay proxies to serve in their place? Would he have supported the antidraft (and very antiblack) riots against Lincoln in New York? After a point, one realizes that it's a waste of time asking him questions of this sort. It would be too much like taking him seriously. He'll just try anything once and see if it floats or flies or gets a cheer.

Indeed, Moore's affected and ostentatious concern for black America is one of the most suspect ingredients of his pitch package. In a recent interview, he yelled that if the hijacked civilians of 9/11 had been black, they would have fought back, unlike the stupid and presumably cowardly white men and women (and children). Never mind for now how many black passengers were on those planes—we happen to know what Moore does not care to mention: that Todd Beamer and a few of his co-passengers, shouting "Let's roll," rammed the hijackers with a trolley, fought them tooth and nail, and helped bring down a United Airlines plane, in Pennsylvania, that was speeding toward either the White House or the Capitol. There are no words for real, impromptu bravery like that, which helped save our republic from worse than actually befell. The Pennsylvania drama also reminds one of the self-evident fact that this war is not fought only "overseas" or in uniform, but is being brought to our cities. Yet Moore is a silly and shady man who does not recognize courage of any sort even when he sees it because he cannot summon it in himself. To him, easy applause, in front of credulous audiences, is everything.

Moore has announced that he won't even appear on TV shows where he might face hostile questioning. I notice from the New York Times of June 20 that he has pompously established a rapid response team, and a fact-checking staff, and some tough lawyers, to bulwark himself against attack. He'll sue, Moore says, if anyone insults him or his pet. Some right-wing hack groups, I gather, are planning to bring pressure on their local movie theaters to drop the film. How dumb or thuggish do you have to be in order to counter one form of stupidity and cowardice with another? By all means go and see this terrible film, and take your friends, and if the fools in the audience strike up one cry, in favor of surrender or defeat, feel free to join in the conversation.

However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point. And as for the scary lawyers—get a life, or maybe see me in court. But I offer this, to Moore and to his rapid response rabble. Any time, Michael my boy. Let's redo Telluride. Any show. Any place. Any platform. Let's see what you're made of.

Some people soothingly say that one should relax about all this. It's only a movie. No biggie. It's no worse than the tomfoolery of Oliver Stone. It's kick-ass entertainment. It might even help get out "the youth vote." Yeah, well, I have myself written and presented about a dozen low-budget made-for-TV documentaries, on subjects as various as Mother Teresa and Bill Clinton and the Cyprus crisis, and I also helped produce a slightly more polished one on Henry Kissinger that was shown in movie theaters. So I know, thanks, before you tell me, that a documentary must have a "POV" or point of view and that it must also impose a narrative line. But if you leave out absolutely everything that might give your "narrative" a problem and throw in any old rubbish that might support it, and you don't even care that one bit of that rubbish flatly contradicts the next bit, and you give no chance to those who might differ, then you have betrayed your craft. If you flatter and fawn upon your potential audience, I might add, you are patronizing them and insulting them. By the same token, if I write an article and I quote somebody and for space reasons put in an ellipsis like this (…), I swear on my children that I am not leaving out anything that, if quoted in full, would alter the original meaning or its significance. Those who violate this pact with readers or viewers are to be despised. At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to be objective. At no moment does he pass up the chance of a cheap sneer or a jeer. He pitilessly focuses his camera, for minutes after he should have turned it off, on a distraught and bereaved mother whose grief we have already shared. (But then, this is the guy who thought it so clever and amusing to catch Charlton Heston, in Bowling for Columbine, at the onset of his senile dementia.) Such courage.

Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless, and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention, as clumsily excerpted like this (...) is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban, and the Baath Party and that the war against jihad is about nothing. If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following:

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …

And that's just from Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.

If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

[Patrick M]

Does Hitchens like anyone? Anything?

[Patrick M]

But politicians aren't making politically motivated movies, which probably aren't completely truthfull, either.

Remember this?

http://forums.lukpac.org/viewtopic.php?t=174