Decius wrote:
] Rattle wrote:
] ] The election was bullshit. The Bush family has many
] financial
] ] ties to the Saudis. The Bush family makes money from war.
] ] The troops are the real victims, support the troops. Eat the
]
] ] rich.
]
] The first thing about this movie is that it didn't piss me off
] as much as I thought it would. Thats mostly because Moore's
] cheap shots didn't overpower his footage.
]
] Footage of soldiers in Iraq. Their attitudes. What life is
] like over there. Amputees. Innocent bystanders with their
] faces burned up. Mothers on both sides screaming at the camera
] over their lost children. People crying in fear. All of the
] horror of what is going on juxtaposed with the insolence of
] business development types who are salivating at the
] opportunities presented by an open Iraq. Juxtaposed with our
] stupid media coverage.
]
] You should see it because it is the raw war footage thats been
] missing from the television. If there is any point that Moore
] makes that I absolutely agree with, its that the giddy, sports
] fan coverage that the U.S. media gave of the invasion of Iraq
] was absolutely disgusting, absolutely disgusting, when held
] against the horrific reality of what was going on. It was
] death as a spectator event. Like the roman coliseum. When you
] see the reality of it held next to our news coverage, our
] attitudes, you will not think us such an advanced culture.
]
] The movie is worth seeing for that reason.
]
] Does Moore lie? Yes, he certainly does. He says most of the
] people in Congress haven't read the Patriot act. He says Iraq
] never murdered Americans. He says that most of Al'Q and the
] Taliban have escaped. He raises numerous conspiracy theories
] about Florida, including the implication that Fox News had
] something to do with it, without providing any proof. He makes
] the unqualified statement that people who died on 9/11 died
] "as the result of our actions." The insane leftist attitude
] that Al'Q are like children who can't be held responsible for
] the things they do.
]
] The movie, on the whole, presented, in a propagandistic way,
] the view that wealthy people are bad people and that poor
] people are good people. The audience blindly applauded on many
] occasions through the film upon being told, by Moore, what to
] think. Like sheep. It was even more disgusting to me that they
] had emotionally recovered from some of the footage enough to
] be excited about a statement and applaud it. The movie
] certainly did not leave me in any mood for applause.
]
] Is Moore wrong about everything? Most certainly not. Could you
] have sat in that room for 15 minutes, staring at the wall in
] fear, after being told that the United States was under
] attack? Is the business relationship between leaders of the
] US, England, and Saudi Arabia a good thing, in that it ensures
] a strong working relationship, or a bad thing, in that it is
] more important to those involved then the interests they've
] been elected to defend? Moore makes a compelling case that
] this relationship may be a significant conflict of interest.
]
] I do think its important people see this film.

Yes, it is important that people see this film. For us intellectual elite (cough cough) the message may seem little dumbed down, matching the tone of, say, the political pundits. Moore's "take it or leave it" interpretation of events is in fact a littl off-putting. But was I ever disgusted by the way the crowd reacted? Hell no.

People clapped not because they so adored Moore, or because their friends were doing it. It was because for the past four years, statements like the one in this movie got you dirty looks and endless patronizing discussions ending in, "geez, do you WANT to get blown up by Sadam?" And now, here were ordinary people, grandmothers and even congressmen agreeing with what was in a lot of people's minds all along... we are being kept in the dark about something.

The endless disinformtion, or just the complete lack of skepticism from our media, meant that the headlines Moore flashes throughout the film were like new news. Maybe some people remembered them individually, but seeing all of these apalling events all together was pretty much horrifying.

Adding to the horror was the underlying assertion that, as usual, a big part of America's actions had to do with good old fashioned greed- an assertion that I found questionable even if it did make for clean answers to tough questions.

Its typical of Moore to throw in little anti-corporatism and class war rhetoric, and appropriate when you start to see a common thread: rich people on both sides are sitting pretty while poor people on both sides are gettig killed. However, I would not say that the message is as simple as poor= good, rich =bad. We are ALL implicated in the war crimes because we looked the other way. We allowed ourselves to be blinded by fear and racism. And we shut our mouths when people did speak out because we didn't want to offend our friends and neighbors.

And thats why people were clapping. They started to realize they weren't offending people, that a lot of people actually agreed! You can love your country and still love peace, you can question your government without questioning democracy. These truths seem so self-evident, but when's the last time you heard them being said while bunch of people clapped? I mean, aside from at Howard Dean rallies?

Yeah, I clapped. And if I go again I might find new things to clap about. Because even the movie made me sad, it strengthened my resolve. There is hope to get this bastard out of office if 300 people sitting in a movie theater are clapping when his policies get denounced. If just for that I'm glad I went.

RE: Fahrenheit 9/11 in 4 Sentences