Liberal writer pans "Unfairenheit 9/11"

Seismic Anamoly · Joined: 22 Aug 2002 Posts: 3039

As I said in an earlier post, just another Bum leeching off the American public.

Sadly, the majority of the American public is too stupid to know it; they fall all over themselves to give you their money.

Dumbasses buy into whatever is the "faddish" controversy on today's calendar. :goofy

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

The real indictment there is that the writer is sympatico with the left-liberal ideas; his beef is the inconsistencies and falsehoods in Moore's stuff and in how they are presented. Others who are non-biased, and who have no political axe to grind have already long noted these things. But this is coming from a respected writer who's solidly in the left!

More on the film from the "BuzzMachine" website at:

BuzzMachine

By way of one illustration, local to me, of Moore's dishonest editing:

Rep. Kennedy pans Michael Moore film editing

Kevin Diaz, Bureau Correspondent

June 4, 2004 KENN0604

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Rep. Mark Kennedy has unhappy memories of his filmed encounter with leftist moviemaker Michael Moore, an encounter featured Thursday

in a trailer for the upcoming U.S. release of the film "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"I was walking back to my office after casting a vote, and all of a sudden some oversized guy puts a mike in my face and a camera in my face," said the Minnesota Republican. "He starts asking if I can help him recruit more people from families of members of Congress to participate in the war on terror."

Kennedy said he told Moore that he has two nephews in the military, one who has just been deployed in the Army National Guard.

But to Kennedy's annoyance, his response to Moore was cut from the trailer (and from the film, according to a spokeswoman for the movie).

"The interesting thing is that they used my image, but not my words," Kennedy said. "It's representative of the fact that Michael Moore doesn't always give the whole story, and he's a master of the misleading."

A spokeswoman for the film, which has found a U.S. distributor after the Walt Disney Co. refused to release it, said she had no comment.

A transcript released by the film's producers shows Moore telling Kennedy that "there is only one member [of Congress] who has a kid over there in Iraq." He asks Kennedy to help him pass out literature encouraging others "to get their kids to enlist in the Army and go over to Iraq."

Kennedy replies, "I'd be happy to. Especially those who voted for the war. [As Kennedy did.] I have a nephew on his way to Afghanistan."

To which Moore replies: "I appreciate it."

-----------------------------------------

So Moore leaves his question in, but completely deletes the response to make it appear as if he had cornered a Congressman and the Congressperson was left speechless by Moore's question. The consistent use of such tactics is one reason why the term "crock-a-mentary" was coined to denote his films.

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

Christopher Hitchens, one of America's most liberal thinkers/writers dissects Moore's latest "crockamentary".

(Due Moore's intellectually dishonest material and tactics - e.g. false information & intentionally misleading editing, he is considered a constant source of embarrassment by America's liberal intellectual community.)

===========================

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.

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.

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.

Unfairenheit 9/11 - The lies of Michael Moore

DreamTone7 · Joined: 20 Sep 2002 Posts: 2571

Mr. Moore sounds like he's had experience with modern media tactics of misleading half-truths and omissions. Now if we could just bring the rest of this "land of confusion" to light, we might actually get somewhere towards being able to actually have the truth told to the US public. Today's media has no such integrity...as is the case with Mr. Moore.

Seismic Anamoly · Joined: 22 Aug 2002 Posts: 3039

Sadly, most people believe that "if it's up on the screen, it just can't possibly be fabricated, or he couldn't show it.....could he??"

The Bum didn't even ask Bradbury if he could Leech the title from the book.

:ohno

MIKE BURN · Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2004 6:32 pm Post subject: Re: re

Quote:
Review: 'Fahrenheit' a powerful, fiery film

At times heavy-handed, at times off-putting, but well done

By Paul Clinton

CNN Reviewer

Friday, June 25, 2004 Posted: 1151 GMT (1951 HKT)

(CNN) -- Filmmaker Michael Moore tends to make his points with a sledgehammer, and his anti-Bush administration documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" is no exception. But this time around he uses more delicate instruments as well, and what emerges is a powerful film.

Documentarians always have their own points of view, but Moore takes his positions and then guards them with pitbull-like intensity (though with humor as well). That tendency was plain in such past efforts as "Roger and Me" and the Academy Award-winning "Bowling For Columbine." "Fahrenheit 9/11" takes his burning passion to new heights; the heat is downright tangible.

But the question isn't whether "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a fair and balanced look at its subject matter. Of course it isn't. Rather, is it good filmmaking?

The answer is yes.

Moore states his premise and then proceeds to build his case quite effectively. The title is a play on "Fahrenheit 451," the temperature at which paper burns, and a Ray Bradbury novel about a future totalitarian state in which reading and independent thought are banned. Moore's contention is that the present administration in Washington is jamming its policies down the throats of Americans -- and the world -- with little to no regard for the truth; or, at the very least, no room for an open discussion as to the validity of those policies.

Showing restraint

Moore is going for the jugular in this one-man cinematic crusade. However, he does show remarkable -- and I feel wise -- restraint when it comes to the actual events of September 11, 2001. Rather than featuring grisly images of the World Trade Center collapsing, he lets the screen go dark, relying on sound to convey the horror of the event.

But when it comes to Bush himself, the gloves are off and the fists are clenched.

Perhaps the most damaging footage shows Bush on September 11, sitting in a Florida classroom for a full seven minutes after he had been told that the second tower had been struck, and that it was clear the horrific events in New York were a terrorist attack, not a tragic accident. Moore lets this moment go on and on: The president of the United States, stone-faced in front of dozens of schoolchildren, doing absolutely nothing, as our nation comes under attack.

Though Moore is the narrator of "Fahrenheit" and appears in the movie, much of the film consists of news footage featuring the president. At times, it can be argued, some of these scenes appear out of context.

In one scene, Bush addresses supporters at a white-tie fundraiser: "This is an impressive crowd -- the haves ... and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." In another moment, Bush is in the middle of a golf game when he gives an obviously impromptu news conference. "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers," he says. "Now watch this drive." He then proceeds to step back and hit the golf ball.

Powerful sequences

But the film finds stunning power in the story of Lila Lipscomb, a resident of Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan. Her son is fighting in Iraq; when she is first interviewed, she's a staunch defender of the war and Bush's policies.

But then her son is killed. After his death, she goes through a poignant and deep metamorphosis and becomes staunchly anti-Bush and anti-war.

Whether "Fahrenheit 9/11" will have an impact beyond its cinematic achievement, only time will tell. But that doesn't diminish the film. It's an accomplished documentary with an extremely powerful message.

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

Mike, you should read the first post here, where the writer is honest about being a liberal (like Moore), has reviewed the film and points out how it's not factual. Emotional, but not factual. Moore himself admits his films are comedy - like Laurel & Hardy or the "3 Stooges", not to be taken seriously.

The CNN (a liberal source) review did not dare answer the question if the film's content is truthful or if it false & fabricated. Although it did confess this:

"the question isn't whether "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a fair and balanced look at its subject matter. Of course it isn't."

So, if a person realizes it's comedic fiction and nothing more, then there's no problem. The cinema offers other summer-release fictional comedies, like "White Chicks", to view. As one American slang phrase goes, "It's six of one and a half dozen of the other". (Beide sind dieselben - Comedyerfindung. Macht nichts.)

The review I posted has the key to understanding the film, using film terms. I was a film student and have worked with video/film so I am familiar with the techniques/terms:

"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."

That is, Moore's film is a mix (ein Mischling??) of a fringe left group (MoveOn) and of two film techiniques mixed to send a false message. Sergei Eisenstein was an early filmmaker who was the first to edit bits and pieces of film together to create an emotional impression. Leni Riefenstahl, who died just last year, was Hitler's propaganda filmmaker. "Triumph of the Will" ("Triumph des Willens") was her most infamous film.

So what the review correctly notes is this is just propaganda (ein Propagandafilm), where the editing (das Filmredigieren) is not honest.

For example: A flash webpage that "morphed" Shroeder's face into Hitler's face and then a voice says "Deutsche stützen diese Führer!" would be not be honest. It would use bits and pieces to produce a false concept in people's minds. And that is the exactly the same type of thing that Moore does.

And that's why people who view it seriously and objectively consider it a "crock-a-mentary" (instead of "documentary"). That's from the American slang phrase, "That's a 'crock of sh-t!' (meaning, "das ist nicht zutreffend").

mattingly · Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 1

A friend of mine posted this counter review of that article <a href="http://vdibart.blogspot.com">here</a>. I don't agree with all of it, but I think it's worth the read.

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

Quote:
A friend of mine posted this counter review of that article

You might wish to tell your friend that, while writing reviews of reviews may be a good practice exercize for aspiring writers, reviewing the item itself - book, play, movie - is the tough and meaningful task. In that context, Moore just has never fared very well with his films among the fact-checkers, whose criteria is "is this fact or fiction?".

Seismic Anamoly · Joined: 22 Aug 2002 Posts: 3039

Quote:
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.

Amazing that all of the above would DELIGHT and ELATE some posters/(so-called)former posters in this very forum. :goofy

And they call me/us barbaric "gobshite" trash. :rollin

Seismic Anamoly · Joined: 22 Aug 2002 Posts: 3039

Quote:

By Ed Koch, former mayor of New York

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Monday, June 28, 2004

It is shocking to me that Americans in a time of war, and we literally are at war with Americans being deliberately killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere by Islamic terrorists, will attack their own country, sapping its strength and making its enemies stronger. I am not a supporter of the xenophobic slogan “My country right or wrong.” But I do believe, when seeking to make it right if it is wrong, that none of us should endanger the country, our military personnel or our fellow citizens.

Disagreeing with America’s foreign policy and seeking to change it, responsibly or irresponsibly, is a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment. Shaming those who do it irresponsibly is our only lawful recourse and rightly so.

Senator John Kerry in criticizing United States’ foreign policy and the incumbent president is acting responsibly, albeit I disagree with many of his views. On the other hand, Michael Moore, writer and director of the film “Fahrenheit 9/11,” crosses that line regularly. The line is not set forth in the criminal statutes, but it is determined by Americans who know instinctively what actions and statements taken and uttered violate the obligations of responsibility and citizenship they deem applicable in time of war.

David Brooks, in a brilliant New York Times column on June 26, collected some of the statements that Michael Moore has been making in other countries which denigrate the U.S. and, in my opinion, cross the line. Brooks writes:

“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…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...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?’

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.”

Undoubtedly, too long a quote, but there is no substitute for the original.

A year after 9/11, I was part of a panel discussion on BBC-TV’s “Question Time” show which aired live in the United Kingdom. A portion of my commentary at that time follows:

“One of the panelists was Michael Moore, writer and director of the award-winning documentary “Roger & Me.” During the warm-up before the studio audience, Moore said something along the lines of “I don’t know why we are making so much of an act of terror. It is three times more likely that you will be struck by lightening than die from an act of terror.” I was aghast and responded, “I think what you have said is outrageous, particularly when we are today commemorating the deaths of 3,000 people resulting from an act of terror.” I mention this exchange because it was not televised, occurring as it did before the show went live. It shows where he was coming from long before he produced “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

Many in the audience assembled by the BBC included Americans and people from other nations. Their positive responses to Moore on this and other comments he made during the program convinced me that the producers had found a lair of dingbats when looking to fill the studio with an audience. Moore later called President Bush a “dummy,” denigrating him for having threatened Iraq with consequences including war if it did not comply with the United Nations resolutions to which it agreed when it was defeated in the 1991 Gulf War. Again, I couldn’t contain myself and said, “That’s what you radicals on the left always do. You don’t debate issues, you denigrate your opponents. You did it with President Reagan, saying he was dumb. After he left office, 600 speeches, many hand-written by him, demonstrated his high intelligence.”

In World Wars I and II, the U.S., suffering great casualties to its military personnel, saved the world, particularly in WWII, from occupation by the German @#%$ Reich and Japanese empire. We currently are fighting the battle against a minority of fundamentalist Islamists whose objective is to destroy Western civilization. They are willing to use every act of terrorism from suicide bombers to hacking off heads to destroy and terrorize us into surrender. And Michael Moore weakens us before that enemy. How should we respond? With scorn, catcalls, the Bronx cheer and the truth. Of course, we should recognize the outrages and criminal acts committed by Americans in military service and civilians at the Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib. We should continue as we have done and take action to punish those involved. But we ought not in the media show again and again the pictures of the atrocities to simply flagellate ourselves and give aid and comfort to our enemies. A good rule of thumb might be to show the pictures of Abu Ghraib as many times as we show the beheadings of Danny Pearl, Nicholas Berg and Paul Johnson.

I am a movie critic, so I went to see “Fahrenheit 9/11.” The movie is a well-done propaganda piece and screed as has been reported by most critics. It is not a documentary which seeks to present the facts truthfully. The most significant offense that movie commits is to cheapen the political debate by dehumanizing the President and presenting him as a cartoon.

Newsday reported some of Moore’s misstatements as follows: “At the start of ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ filmmaker Michael Moore shows a clip of CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin saying that if ballots had been recounted in Florida after the 2000 presidential vote, ‘under every scenario Gore won the election.’

“What Moore doesn't show is that a six-month study in 2001 by news organizations including The New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN found just the opposite. Even if the Supreme Court had not stopped a statewide recount, or if a more limited recount of four heavily Democratic counties had taken place, Bush still would have won Florida and the election…Moore suggests Bush's conflict of interest was manifest shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks when the White House ‘approved planes to pick up the bin Ladens and numerous other Saudis’ who, fearing reprisals, were flown out of the United States. Embellishing the well-known scenario, Moore interviews a retired FBI agent who says authorities should have first questioned the bin Ladens.

“But the bin Ladens were questioned. The commission investigating the attacks reported in April that the FBI interviewed 30 passengers: ‘Nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement in those attacks’” It is clear to me from the tenor of the film’s off-screen commentary by Michael Moore that he would have denounced WW II. Did he support the United States and NATO going into Bosnia to save the Muslims from ethnic cleansing and destruction? Would he agree that we should have attempted to save the Muslim men from death at the hands of the Serbs in Srebrenica? Should we now be going into the Sudan and saving perhaps a million black Christian and Animist Sudanese from Arab marauders who are murdering, raping and starving the blacks and even selling some into slavery? Weren’t we right to go into Iraq on the basis of United Nations Resolution 1441 which stated the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction and that was a cause for war unless they accounted for them and destroyed them, which they refused to do?

Now that no WMDs have yet been found, was the invasion to end the reign of Saddam Hussein, who had killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of his own citizens, still supportable? Moore thinks not. I think, yes.

The movie’s diatribes, sometimes amusing and sometimes manifestly unfair, will not change any views. They will simply cheapen the national debate and reinforce the opinions on both sides.

Galmin · The King has spoken! Joined: 30 Dec 2001 Posts: 1711

Quote:
You might wish to tell your friend that, while writing reviews of reviews may be a good practice exercize for aspiring writers, reviewing the item itself - book, play, movie - is the tough and meaningful task.

Eh? Tertiary litterature is good practice exercise for aspiring writers while secondary litterature is the tough and meaningful task? :lol

How about creating the "item itself"? That would be the real masterpiece, compared to its secondary litterature, right?

So if Michael Moore is the real artist, what does that make Hitchens?

================

Hitchens tries to make his case about Fahrenheit 9/11 by pointing at several sections of the film and claiming that:

* they do not represent the truth.

* Moore has supposedly changed his mind on certain questions in the last couple of years (Hitchens should write a book about politicians).

* Moore lies (actually that's the 2:nd title of the article).

The counterarticle at vdibart.blogspot.com meet all these allegations one by one. Some of them are shown to be mere strawmen.

Hitchens is losing it with his "if Michael Moore had had his way" tirade. Hitchens is an elitist snob? It depends on the kind of elite.

Edited by: Galmin at: 6/29/04 9:43

Seismic Anamoly · Joined: 22 Aug 2002 Posts: 3039

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Some of them are shown to be mere strawmen...

Some of them aren't.

But, all said and done, he's (Moore) laughing at the World...all the way to the Bank.

Quote:

In one often-showed clip, Moore claims that President Bush was on vacation 42 percent of the time during his first several months in office — but that estimation included weekends at Camp David, a common practice for presidents. Without those days figured in, Bush actually spent 13 percent of his time on vacation.

The movie also criticizes Bush for staying inside a Florida classroom full of kids for a full seven minutes after he learned that the country was under attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

However, the vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission has said that Bush did the right thing. "Bush made the right decision in remaining calm, in not rushing out of the classroom," said Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana.

In "Fahrenheit 9/11" (search) Moore also claims that the White House approved plans for planes to pick up relatives of Usama Bin Laden right after the attacks. But according to terrorism czar Richard Clarke (search), he alone approved the Saudi flights.

In addition, Moore says that the departing Saudis were not properly processed by the FBI when leaving the country. That too is contradicted by the Sept. 11 commission, which said the Saudis were properly interviewed.

Finally, Moore shows prominent members of the Taliban visiting Texas, implying that they were invited by then-Governor Bush. The Taliban delegation, however, was invited to Houston by UNOCAL (search), a California energy company.

Moore also doesn't mention that the visit was made with the permission of the Clinton administration, which twice met with Taliban members — in 1997 and 1998.

Lies and Half-Truths...where would we be without them??

If you're Michael Moore, in the Welfare office or the Soup kitchen.

Edited by: Seismic Anamoly at: 6/29/04 16:35