Now that it's out, let's discuss Fahrenheit 9/11.

[Kr430n5_666]

http://www.kak.ru/images/archive/15/epica/EP13_09.jpg'>

[Guest imported_Tesseract]

...Waiting pationatelly for it to hit Europe...

 

Glad to hear that you all, pro moore and antimoore, say its solid

[Poop Man Bob]

Bump for those who saw it today.

 

 

And Tease - here's a listing of theaters that are showing it in our area. If you plan on seeing it this week, I'd purchase tickets online in advance. Either www.movietickets.com or www.fandango.com should cover those theaters.

[T=E=A=S=E]

thanks man, ill probally see it at a weird time so hopefully there wont be many in line... like 4pm during the week or some shit. ill post up again after i see it.

[Poop Man Bob]

Ha!

 

http://www.michaelmoore.com/_images/home/f911-rrating.jpg'>

I love it.

[Poop Man Bob]

By the way, if anyone has any questions regarding whether the assertions made in F9/11 are indeed true, check here.

[EyeforAnEYE]

I'm going to see it at fermentors theatre, probably on wednesday. Should be interesting.

[1988]

Re: Ha!

 

Originally posted by Poop Man Bob

http://www.michaelmoore.com/_images/home/f911-rrating.jpg'>

I love it.

 

 

Yeah the owner of the Grand Lake theatre in Oakland, CA went against regulations and put a PG-13 rating on the film stating that every teenager should see this film. I give that guy a lot of credit for holding his ground. I think I need to check it out soon, thanks for the great reviews.

[FightTheBuff]

Originally posted by LaCosaNostra

* Everybody should get Immortal Technique- Revolutionary Volume 2 if they liked this movie; he is fucking amazing...

 

^^^Yes!

 

i just saw this movie today...its so amazing and powerful,

michael moore is a g, he just tore apart the whole bush administration in a couple hours,

everyone should see this movie

[TheoHuxtable]

Originally posted by KillWhitey

it wouldve been better if it were released in late october, we americans are so fucking forgetfull of shit like this it might not do jack shit in the ballot box just cause how far its being released from november

 

He chose a perfect time. The message he's spreading needs time to "marinate" among the minds of the American people. Can't rush it right before the elections. Plus, Michael Moore is going for the 1-2 punch against the Bush campaign by planning to release the movie on DVD by September.

 

Also everyone download the stencil @:

 

http://www.onetermpresident.org

 

Spray it all over your city! And spread the word!

[Poop Man Bob]

Originally posted by TheoHuxtable

Also everyone download the stencil @:

 

http://www.onetermpresident.org

 

This kicks ass.

[fermentor666]

http://www.bushorchimp.com/

[ClueTwo]

This movie did exactly what I thought it would do..

 

REinforce the fact that our President is a total fuckin money hungry piece of shit ball. Although, the movie is extremely biased and one-sided it has a very straight forward message.

 

Go see it, and vote no for Bush...

[Guest willy.wonka]

the mother that read the letter from her son was sad.

 

the old lady crying out, "where are you GOD!", was pretty sad

 

the whole shituation with our country and the way its run is pretty sad too.

 

the doc was awesome, if you've seen 'bowling for columbine' youre in for a treat. i hear that people clap and cheer afer the movie was over, the same happened down here in hawaii. it seems like a majority of the people do not want the bush family to dealwith anything with our government.

 

watching that doc. made me somewhat realize that even if bush is not re-elected, they are still getting what they want, they just cant eat the cake as well.

[mental invalid]

'Fahrenheit 9/11' Sets Documentary Record...but i dont think you should call it one.

 

'Fahrenheit 9/11' Sets Documentary Record...but i dont think you should call it one.

 

its an opinion piece, and because there is a lack of lexicon to describe such a movie, because no creative critics, and i dont mean fat ass ebert have coined a new school of thought, nor have linguists or ethicists called for a paradign shift in terminolgy.

 

so we are forced to ram this circular word, documentary into this square hole, 'Fahrenheit 9/11'.

 

im afraid for the state of news, and vociferous maddening commentary and opinion being cloaked in the supposed nuetrality of a documentary...

 

blah...i used to love mike moore, but i can see me penning my first book, "how michael moore made me republican"....i still love the guy, he is just irking me these days...

 

since im feeling anti mr. moore right now...here are some opinion pieces that i feel bring up good points.

 

the first by david brooks, and the next by christopher hitchens.

 

roedigital

 

 

 

All Hail Moore

By DAVID BROOKS

 

Published: June 26, 2004

 

 

E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com

 

 

In years past, American liberals have had to settle for intellectual and moral leadership from the likes of John Dewey, Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Luther King Jr. But now, a grander beacon has appeared on the mountaintop, and from sea to shining sea, tens of thousands have joined in the adulation.

 

So it is worth taking a moment to study the metaphysics of Michael Moore. For Moore is not only a filmmaker; he is a man of ideas, and his work is based on an actual worldview.

 

Like Hemingway, Moore does his boldest thinking while abroad. For example, it was during an interview with the British paper The Mirror that Moore unfurled what is perhaps the central insight of his oeuvre, that Americans are kind of crappy.

 

"They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet . . . in thrall to conniving, thieving smug [pieces of the human anatomy]," Moore intoned. "We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing."

 

It transpires that Europeans are quite excited to hear this supple description of the American mind. And Moore has been kind enough to crisscross the continent, speaking to packed lecture halls, explicating the general vapidity and crassness of his countrymen. "That's why we're smiling all the time," he told a rapturous throng in Munich. "You can see us coming down the street. You know, `Hey! Hi! How's it going?' We've got that big [expletive] grin on our face all the time because our brains aren't loaded down."

 

Naturally, the people from the continent that brought us Descartes, Kant and Goethe are fascinated by these insights. Moore's books have sold faster there than at home. No American intellectual is taken so seriously in Europe, save perhaps the great Chomsky.

 

Before a delighted Cambridge crowd, Moore reflected on the tragedy of human existence: "You're stuck with being connected to this country of mine, which is known for bringing sadness and misery to places around the globe." In Liverpool, he paused to contemplate the epicenters of evil in the modern world: "It's all part of the same ball of wax, right? The oil companies, Israel, Halliburton."

 

In the days after Sept. 11, while others were disoriented, Moore was able to see clearly: "We, the United States of America, are culpable in committing so many acts of terror and bloodshed that we had better get a clue about the culture of violence in which we have been active participants."

 

This leads to Michael Moore's global plan of action. "Don't be like us," he told a crowd in Berlin. "You've got to stand up, right? You've got to be brave."

 

In an open letter to the German people in Die Zeit, Moore asked, "Should such an ignorant people lead the world?" Then he began to reflect on things economic. His central insight here is that the American economy, like its people, is pretty crappy, too: "Don't go the American way when it comes to economics, jobs and services for the poor and immigrants. It is the wrong way."

 

In an interview with a Japanese newspaper, Moore helped citizens of that country understand why the United States went to war in Iraq: "The motivation for war is simple. The U.S. government started the war with Iraq in order to make it easy for U.S. corporations to do business in other countries. They intend to use cheap labor in those countries, which will make Americans rich."

 

But venality doesn't come up when he writes about those who are killing Americans in Iraq: "The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not `insurgents' or `terrorists' or `The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win." Until then, few social observers had made the connection between Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Paul Revere.

 

So we have our Sartre. And the liberal grandees Arthur Schlesinger, Ted Sorenson, Tom Harkin and Barbara Boxer flock to his openings. In Washington, a Senate vote was delayed because so many Democrats wanted to see his movie.

 

The standards of socially acceptable liberal opinion have shifted. We're a long way from John Dewey.

 

 

 

 

Unfairenheit 9/11

The lies of Michael Moore.

By Christopher Hitchens

Posted Monday, June 21, 2004, at 12:26 PM PT

 

 

 

Moore: Trying to have it three ways

 

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.

 

 

Recruiters in Michigan

 

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 Vienna* 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.

 

 

Trying to talk congressmen into sending their sons to war

 

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.

 

Correction, June 22, 2004: This piece originally referred to terrorist attacks by Abu Nidal's group on the Munich and Rome airports. The 1985 attacks occurred at the Rome and Vienna airports. (Return to the corrected sentence.)

 

 

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His latest book, Blood, Class and Empire: The Enduring Anglo-American Relationship, is out in paperback.

[Vanity]

i want to see it... cause i'm sure it'll be funny.

 

but i won't condone these types of movies w/ my money, so i'll prolly cop a bootleg

[Guest]

this might have been cimmented on already....

 

Originally posted by Poop Man Bob

taking in

an estimated $8.2 million (with White Chicks [$6.7] coming in at #2).

 

'White Chicks'? shouldn't that say something?

Good thing he released it on a VERY slow movie weekend.

[Poop Man Bob]

Roe?

 

Did you just use a Brooks column to back your argument? Ecch.

 

So, is your only beef with the movie the fact that it's marketed/described as a documentary piece, while you feel it's not? Even Moore admits the film is more akin to a video op-ed. So how is Moore then turning you into a Republican? And have you seen the movie?

[T=E=A=S=E]

POOPS-

 

hollertron on aim mang. plz?

 

/ibteaser

[fermentor666]

Don't call me moron, moron.

 

Poop, thought you might like to know that we've been selling out this film on a regular basis. I've never seen the place even close to as busy as it was on a weekday (Friday doesn't count), unless it was on Christmas Day. We have it on two screens and were turning people away for the evening shows on a MONDAY. Never happened in the 3+ years I've worked there.

 

Saw the movie tonight, and while I still am not a fan of Michael Moore, I haven't been that moved during a movie in a long time (and I see a lot of movies). There is a lot in this movie that cannot be discredited that is as equally moving as the shaky points. I have big problems with the way Moore went about some things (the Heston interview in particular) in "Bowling for Columbine". No matter what, "Farenheit 9/11" proves that this country is in shit shape and our current presidency is a joke, anyone who denies that after seeing this film is lying to themselves.

 

I also watched this on the clock, so I am not trying to justify the spending of $8.75.

[Guest BROWNer]

Originally posted by TheoHuxtable

Also everyone download the stencil @:

http://www.onetermpresident.org

 

that indeed does rock.

however, i'm not down with the slogan.

as such, download this instead:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://img4.photobucket.com/albums/v29/Tesseract/douchebagstencil.jpg'>

[Poop Man Bob]

Thanks for the info, ferm. I'm glad you enjoyed it, too. And I echo your sentiments on the Heston interview.

[Poop Man Bob]

Krugman's new piece about F9/11:

 

Moore's Public Service

By PAUL KRUGMAN

 

Since it opened, "Fahrenheit 9/11" has been a hit in both blue and red America, even at theaters close to military bases. Last Saturday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. took his Nascar crew to see it. The film's appeal to working-class Americans, who are the true victims of George Bush's policies, should give pause to its critics, especially the nervous liberals rushing to disassociate themselves from Michael Moore.

 

 

There has been much tut-tutting by pundits who complain that the movie, though it has yet to be caught in any major factual errors, uses association and innuendo to create false impressions. Many of these same pundits consider it bad form to make a big fuss about the Bush administration's use of association and innuendo to link the Iraq war to 9/11. Why hold a self-proclaimed polemicist to a higher standard than you hold the president of the United States?

 

 

And for all its flaws, "Fahrenheit 9/11" performs an essential service. It would be a better movie if it didn't promote a few unproven conspiracy theories, but those theories aren't the reason why millions of people who aren't die-hard Bush-haters are flocking to see it. These people see the film to learn true stories they should have heard elsewhere, but didn't. Mr. Moore may not be considered respectable, but his film is a hit because the respectable media haven't been doing their job.

 

 

For example, audiences are shocked by the now-famous seven minutes, when George Bush knew the nation was under attack but continued reading "My Pet Goat" with a group of children. Nobody had told them that the tales of Mr. Bush's decisiveness and bravery on that day were pure fiction.

 

 

Or consider the Bush family's ties to the Saudis. The film suggests that Mr. Bush and his good friend Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the ambassador known to the family as Bandar Bush, have tried to cover up the extent of Saudi involvement in terrorism. This may or may not be true. But what shocks people, I think, is the fact that nobody told them about this side of Mr. Bush's life.

 

 

Mr. Bush's carefully constructed persona is that of an all-American regular guy — not like his suspiciously cosmopolitan opponent, with his patrician air. The news media have cheerfully gone along with the pretense. How many stories have you seen contrasting John Kerry's upper-crusty vacation on Nantucket with Mr. Bush's down-home time at the ranch?

 

 

But the reality, revealed by Mr. Moore, is that Mr. Bush has always lived in a bubble of privilege. And his family, far from consisting of regular folks with deep roots in the heartland, is deeply enmeshed, financially and personally, with foreign elites — with the Saudis in particular.

 

 

Mr. Moore's greatest strength is a real empathy with working-class Americans that most journalists lack. Having stripped away Mr. Bush's common-man mask, he uses his film to make the case, in a way statistics never could, that Mr. Bush's policies favor a narrow elite at the expense of less fortunate Americans — sometimes, indeed, at the cost of their lives.

 

 

In a nation where the affluent rarely serve in the military, Mr. Moore follows Marine recruiters as they trawl the malls of depressed communities, where enlistment is the only way for young men and women to escape poverty. He shows corporate executives at a lavish conference on Iraq, nibbling on canapés and exulting over the profit opportunities, then shows the terrible price paid by the soldiers creating those opportunities.

 

 

The movie's moral core is a harrowing portrait of a grieving mother who encouraged her children to join the military because it was the only way they could pay for their education, and who lost her son in a war whose justification she no longer understands.

 

 

Viewers may come away from Mr. Moore's movie believing some things that probably aren't true. For example, the film talks a lot about Unocal's plans for a pipeline across Afghanistan, which I doubt had much impact on the course of the Afghan war. Someday, when the crisis of American democracy is over, I'll probably find myself berating Mr. Moore, who supported Ralph Nader in 2000, for his simplistic antiglobalization views.

 

 

But not now. "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a tendentious, flawed movie, but it tells essential truths about leaders who exploited a national tragedy for political gain, and the ordinary Americans who paid the price.

 

 

Right on. I love Krugman.

[mr.yuck]

I just saw it last night and while i knew a good amount of what was in the movie already there were some bits and pieces that tied together the parts i knew about even stronger. I thought that it was kick ass and should be seen by every one. I really liked the humorous spin that he put on it in some parts. Im gonna go see it again.

[jbrshmonster]

Originally posted by LaCosaNostra

* Everybody should get Immortal Technique- Revolutionary Volume 2 if they liked this movie; he is fucking amazing...

 

"step in the club, smooth, with an el in my hand...

bitches know i'm a freak like the elephant man..."

immortal technique is nasty..

check for diabolic on track 3..

 

and the movie was great... not the awesome but great..

and that bitch who said it was all staged should be hanged...

that was horrible... i felt so bad for the mom...

[NOT GUILTY]

http://WWW.BUCKFUSH.COM.................

[ODS-1]

I saw it today and was amazed. It was hardly any of Moores opinion and just facts. I had to turn away at the pictures of the iraqui kids, and the burnt bodies part. But the part with pedersons mother made me almost cry. I remember seeing the little old lady that was saying "Bush is a terrorist" when I went to D.C.

 

I'm glad moore didn't hug the lady while she was crying on camera like he did in bowling for columbine.

I liked how the september 11th part was all just the sounds, and how it was basically a montage of peope looking up. Very well put together.

I liked how they showed pictures of Iraq before the war because everyone was smiling, and the bush admin. gave us all this image of some run down depressed shithole. The part where the soldiers were touching that guys erection made me want to kill those fucking soldiers, as did the part with the let the bodies hit the floor shit. And scene where the two soldiers were standing there after bush was saying we won, and the bomb went off and that other guy wasn't there.

After seeing the iraqi civilians all shot up It didn't bother me seeing the american soldiers getting blown up.

I like how he showed the black voters speaking at the beginning too.

[Guest imported_El Mamerro]

It was amazing. A lot of moments where I rolled my eyes and shook my head at how Moore said (and didn't say) some things, but overall a finely crafted piece of filmmaking and strong message. I can't possibly see this failing to bring Bush under, but so far he seems unfazed. Let's hope this changes as more and more audiences watch it.

 

Moore still has a long way to go with his delivery for me, and I'd say a lot of people as well, to place more trust on his words.

[JohnnyHorton]

Originally posted by the_gooch

i am going to see this movie tomorrow and i am actually looking for it now on line.

 

yeah, things are getting me worried with all the homeland security shit.

 

but the climate of things in general is just troublesome.

 

 

i am seriously thinking about moving to canada.

 

how is the job market up there?

 

what is an average salary for a teacher??

 

teachers aren't making the ends they deserve ... our education funding has been getting steadily cut the last few years (at least in Alberta... which is the richest Province in Canada)

 

As I understand it (but I'm only 20) they best way to make easy money is to have a trade ticket or something along those lines.... I'm going to school for environmental engineeringenvironmental sciences and I'm looking at job placement, plus a starting salary around 60-75 G's usually...

[Cracked Ass]

I saw this movie on a Monday night. It was one seat shy of selling out. (I got the second-last folding chair, and put my feet up on the last one.)

As several people have already stated, this movie is very good and immensely valuable regardless of the (undisguised) bias and innuendo of its creator. (I haven't seen the other Moore movies yet, so I was not acclimated to his former level of self-promotion, which people are saying was worse before this movie. I found the level of Moore's active participation/self-promotion in Fahrenheit 9/11 to be quite tolerable.)

 

I tried to quote somebody's post above but it didn't work. The statement I want to repeat is, why hold a self-described polemicist to a higher standard than the president of the United States? Of course Moore's film is biased. So is Fox news and a hundred other commentators masquerading as journalists. It's refreshing to hear a voice from the other side for a change.

 

There are also plenty of things in this movie that can't be tainted with bias, even if there was bias in the choice to include them. You can't ignore the interviews with the mother of a soldier who was killed, both before and after his death. These are honest statements from a real person - unless you think she was hamming it up to further the film's premise, which is a pretty rotten accusation. Footage of Bush mumbling and stumbling his way through encounters with the media is not somehow doctored - he is actually that inarticulate. Statements of gung-ho soldiers eager to kill are not faked: there are people that stupid in our armed forces. (And I'm not without sympathy for these gullible youngsters, after all they were worked over by the biggest and most cynical propaganda machine since Joey Goebbels'.) Anyone refusing to see this movie because they think Michael Moore is a liar is missing the real story. (And what are those folks afraid of? Having to reevaluate their opinions? If your convictions are that strong, this movie can't hurt you. And for fuck's sake, see the movie BEFORE you impugn it, I am getting sick of people who trash this movie WITHOUT HAVING SEEN IT because they already have an anti-Moore kneejerk reflex in place.)