What I think, why I think it
Let us pause for a moment, on the eve of our nation's 229th birthday and reflect on the pure leadership ability, the gravitas, the man who has been measured by hard circumstance and not found wanting-- The man who looks good in a construction outfit singing YMCA.
Jack Ryan (R-Illinois) recently dropped his bid for the Senate due to allegations that he asked his wife to perform sex acts in public at Parisian sex clubs. The voters freaked out, he lost the support of his party, the media erupted in a typical feeding frenzy around the lurid details. The public has a right to know, doncha know.
As a result, he has reached the conclusion that:
"...the media's focus on candidates' personal sex lives serves no public purpose and is harmful to democracy.
Imagine that.
Of course I agree with him. I just think it's kind of funny coming out of the mouth of a Republican. Bill Clinton, are you listening? It wouldn't have mattered much anyway. His opponent, up and coming Democratic superstar Barrack Obama, was up by 22 points in the polls. Mr. Obama could have really stuck it to Ryan. Instead, he was all class, calmly stating that he's not interested in the allegations and prefers to stick to the issues.
I like that response and like Barack Obama's chances. Welcome to the Senate, Mr. Obama.
Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 portrays a president and an administration actively manipulating the country towards war with Iraq through the use of fear, propaganda and falsehood. It documents the Bush family business relationships, including close ties with Saudi Arabia, as the source and beneficiary of US Presidential power. It gives us an extended case study of Americans caught in war, from soldiers pulling the trigger to Heavy Metal music to the young man who felt a piece of his soul fall away as he killed human beings. He shows us a family grieving the loss of a soldier-son struggling to reconcile the stories from the front with the stories told by our leaders.
Now, Walt Disney is releasing America's Heart and Soul. Disney's blurb says that the movie is
..a peek into someone's heart, a journey into the soul of another human being, and a thrill ride into the sights and sounds of our cultural diversity,
In an irony even Mickey Mouse would find hard to miss, America is about to weigh two wildly contrasting versions of itself in theaters this weekend as the Walt Disney Co. debuts its own foray into documentary filmmaking right alongside Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- which the studio refused to release.
Indeed, Disney is being anything but bashful about the spiritual aspects of the film. Telephone callers to its advance ticket sales office may order a free bible study guide designed to go with the film.
There is nothing wrong with giving Bibles out at a movie. It just says a lot about the Demographic for whom the movie was made. That could be you and me. Heck, I would take, and read a free bible any day of the week. I would also accept and read a free copy of the Q'uran.
However, San Francisco's Hubbell is dead wrong. The visions of America offered by the movies are not wildly contrasting at all. They are not mutually exclusive. You and I, and Michael Moore, and Lila Lipscomb, the mother documented in Fahrenheit 9/11 grieving for the senseless loss of her son in Iraq, are all part of the grand parade of unique Americans portrayed in America's Heart and Soul. In fact, it is the good, kind, courageous unbelievably patriotic and productive people portrayed in Disney's movie who are the victims of the political con game documented in Fahrenheit 9/11.
"Liberals" will be tempted to attack Disney's movie as right-wing propaganda. Don't fall for it, any of you. If Kerry, other democrats and Moore himself are smart, they will embrace both. Part of the mythology perpetuated by Republicans is the idea that they are somehow more "American" than their democratic and liberal fellow citizens. They have co-opted our national imagery tied it to a religious agenda of proposed social change, support for Bush and the entire Republican platform and equated the total package with "love of country." Democrats typically get defensive and stridently defend their right to criticize the country at a time of great stress as a sign of patriotism and a healthy exercise of civil liberties. I agree with that, but the branding doesn't look so hot, ya gotta admit.
Democrats have to start seeing themselves in the kinds of pictures shown in America's Heart and Soul. It will be good for us. When a Republican or Conservative tries to contrast Fahrenheit 9/11 with Disney's take on America, give a little shrug and say what I say:
"Hey, I am in both movies. The reason I am so interested in voting Bush out of office is Disney's America is being dismantled by the government documented in Fahrenheit 9/11."
So the Iraqi government has set sail. To me it seems as though the fate of the nation is adrift on an ocean of violence. I hope the new Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, can stay alive long enough to work his magic. Regardless of how one feels about how we got to Iraq or what we did when we got there, it is in America's interest to see the new Iraqi government succeed.
Unfortunately, it will be very difficult. The stealth handover was spun by the Bush administration as a way to confound terrorists who might have intended to interrupt the process with an attack. But the utter lack of pomp and circumstance, celebration and publicity that might normally accompany the birth of a nation was conspicuously absent. Why? Because Iraq, is more of a bloody mess than ever.
The US is guarding the fledgling government with a Military that is stretched to the limit. They are at the limits of reasonable capability because the insurgency is solidifying. That has left reconstruction in the lurch. Shortly before Bremer left, the CPA admitted that "...fewer than 140 of 2,300 promised construction projects are under way.“That’s the real tragedy for the Iraqi people and, in all probability, the fuel for the insurgency. The Government Accounting Office has issued a scathing report on the general health of the reconstruction effort under the Coalition Provisional Authority. According to USA Today, It draws a harsh picture of the effort:
The U.S. administration in Iraq was bedeviled by staff shortages, escalating violence, lack of functioning Iraqi courts and continuing electrical power woes, a congressional report out Tuesday says.
Meanwhile, the Administration continues to paint a rosy picture of the future of Iraq and blame the media for focusing on the negative. I think people are not buying it anymore. That's what the polls show, anyway.
I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday. The Supreme Court, in the words of this Salon analysis, checked and balanced the president.
The detainess at Guantanomo Bay will see their day in court. Here are the cases and their rulings: Rasul v. Bush, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld v. Padilla
Writing for the plurality in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a US citizen of Saudi descent who has been held since he was captured in late 2001 in Afghanistan allegedly fighting with the Taliban militia, Justice Sandra Day O'conner voiced the following:
''It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad,"
"...a state of war is not a blank check when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."
It would be better if Gitmo were dismantled. It's a prison camp. The logic behind its creation has been thoroughly repudiated. If we capture a terrorist or suspected terrorist in the US, let's build the case, try him/her in an open court of law, and abide by the verdict. If we capture a soldier in one of our foreign excursions, then we should hold them until the war is over then let them go. Terrorists captured in other countries need to be prosecuted in those countries. Our legal system, the writ of habeus corpus and the inherent fairness that stems from it, is something that defines us as a civil society. I agree with London's Finacial Times when it says that the ruling "strikes a blow for justice."
It doesn't only strike a blow for justice. This ruling redeems us all. I personally do not feel like handing my civil liberties to George Bush so that he can prosecute people he believes are terrorists. I do not trust a man who would argue to hold that power on behalf of the American people. For those of you who think that Spain capitulated to Al Qaeda by voting out the incumbents and bringing their troops home from Iraq, I assure you, that would be a microscopic enemy victory compared to having the United States gut its own legal system and the principles of liberty and fairness on which it is founded in response to a terrorist attack.
I loved Michael Moore's new movie. I saw Fahrenheit 9.11 for the second time today. I went the first time to enjoy Moore's art. I went the second time to analyze it. Though I have enjoyed Moore's films in the past, his points don't always take wing on their own. Sometimes Moore makes up a juicy tidbit or edits a shot just so to nudge along his argument. He did it in Roger and Me by manipulating the chronology of the events portrayed in the film to strengthen the relationship between GM layoffs and poverty in Flint, Michigan. He did it in Bowling for Columbine when he semi-staged a scene in a bank in which he was given a free gun in exchange for opening an account. In fact, Moore's books and movies need to be as rigorously evaluated as any propaganda you consume. That's unfortunate because his art, reputation and a world view I happen to share, for the most part, would be better represented by more a factually precise spokesman.
I am also sometimes bored with the size of his ego and his persecution complex. When your movie is being shown at 800 some odd theatres across the nation and it opens at number one at the box office, can it really be said that you are being silenced? Was there any real doubt that his movie would be shown? I don't think so. Nonetheless Republicans have a real knack for ill advised power plays. I enjoyed their attempts to boycott the film through Move America Forward and their idiotic attempt to re-classify the promo spots as campaign advertising. Putzes.
For all that, I am glad that Michael Moore is who he is. I am glad he is out there making movies. I don't ever want him to quit. Michael, who loves you baby? I do.
Fahrenheit 9.11 isn't a perfect movie, by a long shot. In fact, it has some of the patented Moore problems. It is pure propaganda and it isn't balanced in the least, as Moore freely admits. In this negative but somewhat insightful review, Christianity Today (oh go on, read something you ordinarily wouldn't...it aint gonna kill ya), points out many of the same shortcomings I see. Most glaringly, Moore establishes a strong relationship between Bush and the Saudis, but then uses a montage of grip and grin outtakes to reinforce the point. The photos basically prove nothing since any active president will be out pressing the flesh with any number of world leaders. He also depicts pre war Iraq as some sort of idyllic sanctuary for kite-flying children. That's just plain ridiculous. Then the "Coalition of the Willing" is brutally mocked, which is very funny and completely deserved, but he leaves out Britain and Australia. C'mon there Mike, they have folks dying too. Let's give them some credit.
There are other small problems, but they are beside the point. None of it makes a hair of diffrerence in the overall quality of the movie.
They are beside the point because Fahrenheit 9.11 really isn't a documentary at all. It is a blistering visual essay on the character of George Bush and by extension, his administration, his family ties with the House of Saud, the obvious relish with which he wages war, the smooth liars that give voice to his opinions, the utter greed and hypocrisy that drives his every move, and most poignantly, the people living and dying to sustain the system that produced him. It is a brilliant, funny, brutal, angry piece of political propaganda made by a richly talented filmmaker.
The GOP is howling now and for good reason. Moore has struck a hard blow in a sensitive area. Moore's arrows strike home because the real damage to Bush isn't done through some cinematic trick. It's done by Bush being Bush, and Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Ashcroft and the rest of the neocon cannibals being their craven selves. Sometimes it is tough to watch such an extended parade of cretins as they hang themselves repeatedly with their squirmy half-truths. But it feels good to have it assembled like this. In fact, all you ever really need to know about George Bush is one of the few truths he utters in the movie. His very fiber is summed up in these opening lines given at a speech 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.
Moore's movie won't appeal to Georgie's base. But it will get this country talking like free people-- free to vote these clowns out of office.
