Preview of whats to come in 'Farenheit 911'

[Eclipse 0]

I loved Bowling for Columbine, and this movie should be even better....

[Guest MikeSC]

Upon reading the synopsis of the Alex Jones film, it doesn't sound exactly like Moore's new film. They're both Anti- Bush, but the approaches are different, and the movies are different. OMG THEY COVER THE SAME TOPIC AND BOTH HAVE 911 IN THE NAME THEY MUST BE THE SAME~!

 

You got that information from the site that RELEASED JONES' FILM AND SELLS IT TODAY AT A PRICE! Don't you think that it might be a *tad* biased in its dismissal of Moore's film? Just a *tad*?

Apparently, you confuse plagarism for xeroxing. Moore's film is a tip-off of Jones' film.

 

Fact is, there is nothing Moore can say that the left will not praise. There is nothing he can put in a film that the left won't cheer.

 

And there is no amount of lies that can be refuted that will make his followers doubt him.

 

THUS, critics stick with fat jokes --- as they take FAR less energy and thought and will generate the same level of introspection his supporters lavish upon him.

 

I can go off on a LITANY of things Moore has lied about or proven himself to be a total hypocrite about --- but you won't believe it, no matter how well documented it is.

 

However, just to give you a TASTE of him, try THIS on for size:

 

Moore's side of an event:

And then there was San Diego.

 

Over a thousand people are packed inside the 800-seat auditorium. Outside, another thousand people are on the lawn trying to get in. The traffic on the street is tied up and the stream of San Diegoans keeps filing up the sidewalk. I tell the organizers that I am going to spend a half-hour outside here speaking to the people who cannot get in. They are, after all, like me -- slackers who are habitually late. The crowd outdoors is wired and jazzed that they are being honored for being tardy.

 

Then I go inside, give my usual talk, and begin to sign books. There's a 90-year-old lady whose granddaughter has driven her down from Orange County. There's a union organizer from the antiunion San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper who announces that his grandfather was a sit-down striker with my uncle back in 1937 in Flint. Some punk-poet kid tries to finish me off for good by offering me two Krispy Kreme donuts. Hundreds line up to have their books, their "Awful Truth" DVDs and, in one case, an Iron Maiden jean jacket, signed. I am told that we are getting close to the time when we will have to leave the school, as it has only been rented until 11pm. That is not good. Hundreds are still in line.

 

I don't think any of these signings this week have been over before midnight.

 

Somewhere around 11:30pm, I hear a commotion at the back of the auditorium. I see people start to scatter. The San Diego police are coming down the aisle, their large flashlights out (the auditorium lights are still on, so we all understand the implied "other" use of these instruments). The police are telling everyone to "VACATE THESE PREMISES IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL ALL BE ARRESTED!" I cannot believe what I am hearing. "YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE ANOTHER WARNING. LEAVE NOW -- OR FACE ARREST!"

 

The cops approach the stage where I am signing the books. People are visibly frightened -- and about half the book-line bolts toward the doors. I stand up and speak to the officers. "I am the author of this book," I tell them politely. "These people are only here to get a book and all I am doing is signing them. We will be done shortly."

 

"I don't care who you are," they reply. "We have received a call from the school district and we have been told to remove you. You were supposed to be out of here at 11:00pm." We had apparently violated our curfew.

 

"C'mon guys, you can't be serious," I said. "Are you saying that you are going to arrest me for signing people's books, and arrest the people who are here because they want to read this book?"

 

"I don't care what you are doing -- this is your last warning. I am ready to arrest you and everyone else."

 

"Who is your superior?" I ask.

 

"I'm it. Only the Chief is above me at night, and I am not going to wake him up. This has already gone through many channels. We are here because this has already gone through many people in the last half-hour, people in authority, and the decision has been made to clear you out of here or arrest you."

 

I have never been arrested, strange as that may seem. I could not believe that, of all I have done, all I have stood for over the years, that it has come down to this -- and I was about to be hauled away for autographing books!

 

"OK," I said. "We'll leave." I then mumbled something about the last time I checked, this was still the United States of America -- even if we were just five miles away from where it ends. They escorted me and the few remaining souls out of the building. The brave lady who was the owner of the independent bookstore and who was there selling my book, leaned over and whispered to me, "I am willing to go to jail for this if you want me to." Ya gotta hand it to the independent bookstores -- they've been through hell lately, so much so that they are now ready to be led away in handcuffs!

 

I walked outside and about 40 people ask me if I would still sign their books in the dark of the parking lot. A girl gets out her pocket flashlight. A guy runs over and turns on his headlights. I remark that it feels like we're in some sort of banana republic or East Berlin, secretly meeting so we can have our little book gathering. "Sign quick, Mike, here come the police!"

 

I finish the last book and hop in my sister's car. She remembers to give me a plaque that had been presented to me in abstentia (while I was outside talking to the people who couldn't get in). It was from the city councilwoman from the area of San Diego we were in. It read "Official Proclamation: City of San Diego Declares -- March 9, 2002, 'Michael Moore Day.'"

 

"Maybe we should have shown this to the cops, " she says. We drive to her house where I catch four hours sleep before I get up and head for Denver.

 

Yours,

 

Michael Moore Author Filmmaker NonEvildoer

 

[email protected] [email protected] www.michaelmoore.com

http://www.sonoran-sunsets.com/stupid.html

 

HOWEVER, a FAN OF HIS who was AT THE SIGNING IN QUESTION seemed to have a slightly different interpretation of events:

Because I was there, I feel I have to tell the story as I saw it -- as it really happened. Don't get me wrong, I am a big supporter of Michael Moore, I love his book, and I have great respect for his courage. But unfortunately I have lost some of that respect for him based on his actions on Friday night, and his rather incomplete (and inappropriately inflammatory) description of the so-called RAID. I think the public record needs more than Michael's view on events.

 

The whole cause of the problem on Friday night was the vast and unexpected turnout. From what I've been told, previous events numbered 400 or less; the popular wisdom is that "there is no progressive community in San Diego," a highly conservative military town.

 

However, over 1,800 people showed up that night, to see the book that was almost pulped because it "wasn't in tune with the people." I think those publishing executives have proven to be quite incorrect.

 

The more-than-twice-capacity crowd presented problems in scheduling. The middle school auditorium had only been promised to Activist San Diego until 11:00; the doors opened at 6:30 and the event was to begin at 8:30. Michael's delayed entrance pushed the schedule back further, although I think everyone who was there would agree it was a great thing for him to stop and talk to the crowd outside. That was a good call.

 

When Michael Moore had finished his speaking (and he's a fun speaker, if you haven't caught him yet), he took some questions and then sat down on the stage to sign books. People lined up literally out the doors to get his autograph on VCR tapes, articles of clothing, and copies of Stupid White Men. I counted several hundred waiting, and decided to simply sit down and read instead of standing in line that long.

 

Shortly after 11:00, with still about 75 people waiting for signatures, Michael was approached by the organizers from Activist San Diego. It was time, he was told, to stop signing, because the use permit only went to 11:00. The janitors at the middle school were staying late, unable to go home until the Activist San Diego event cleared out and they could lock up the place.

 

Around this point is where Michael Moore starts to make a tactical error. I realize that it was an uncomfortable position for everyone, including the organizers, the janitors, Michael, and the people waiting in line. But I don't agree that Michael handled it well.

 

What he did was this: He stood up at the front of the auditorium and faced the line snaking along the left side of the room. "They won't let me sign any more," he said, bewildered. "I can sign your books." He seemed to be confused by the concept that sometimes you have to stop when it's time to close up and go home; apparently this was the first time he'd encountered such a situation.

 

The crowd started to grumble and complain. They wouldn't get the great Michael Moore's signature on their books. That's just not fair. "There are more of us than there are of them!" called a voice near the start of the line. "They can't stop us!"

 

Explanations from the organizers fell on unsympathetic ears. "We talk about how we support the working people, and there are two of them, janitors, waiting to get home to their families," lamented one. "Let's just take up a collection! A dollar from each us!" suggested the crowd.

 

A perplexed-looking Moore still had no idea what to do. So he shrugged, and declared he was going back to signing. The crowd got back in line and filed through, a little quicker this time. The request to shut down and go home was pretty much ignored. This was a bad choice by Michael, and is what caused the cops to show up.

 

At the back of the hall, the janitors complained to the local organizers, who were pretty much helpless to dislodge the author of one of the top-selling books in the country from meeting his followers. After the 11:00 mark passed on the clock, the auditorium was no longer Activist San Diego's to use. The janitors couldn't toss them out, and Moore wasn't listening to the requests of the organizers.

 

The janitors got on the phone. With whom, I can't say, I wasn't there. But when you've got a crowd of nearly 100 people and they refuse to leave, and show no sign of being very cooperative, I'm not sure what a janitor is to do. Apparently, they called the police. So, the police show up, shortly after 11:30.

 

 

Was it a "raid"? Well, I suppose one could call it that, if you want to stretch the definition considerably. Certainly the connotations are extreme -- cops kicking in the door, turning over tables, pulling weapons, screaming for people to freeze. Not all police "raids" are like that, but surely something worthy of being called an all-capital-letters "RAID" on MichaelMoore.com would probably have some of those, right? At least, more than two cops calmly walking in the back of the auditorium, right?

 

But, that's exactly how many showed up, two. And rather decent ones at that, doing an uncomfortable task. I'm not apologist for police brutality; in fact, I rather dislike most displays of police power that I've seen lately. However, this was far from brutal, and they didn't strike me as guys on a "RAID".

 

"MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION," yelled the senior cop as he walked into the auditorium. "THE USE PERMIT FOR THIS EVENT EXPIRED AT ELEVEN. YOU HAVE TO LEAVE NOW." Yelling, of course, to be heard.

 

Once more amazed at the idea that there could be such thing as "closing time" -- do bars never shut down in Flint, Michigan? -- Moore seemed shocked that the cops were there to ask him to leave. And I suppose, from his perspective, it was rather startling.

 

"But this is a book signing...you would arrest people at a book signing?" he quizzed. "In America?"

 

Several people had cameras out. I haven't seen any of the other pictures posted on the Web yet, but I've got mine. You can see the unedited pictures, direct from my camera, at http://kynn.com/photos/mar2002/activist/.

 

The crowd eventually dispersed. The cops left. Michael signed a few more books out in the dark parking lot, via flashlight and car headlight.

 

On the way out, disgruntled attendees voiced their frustration. "I'd like to find the name of the guy who called the cops, and put his name all over the Internet!" fumed one man, not knowing the janitor was only about 20 feet away. "I am never coming to an Activist San Diego event again!" another young man with spiky hair and a leather jacket told his blue-tressed friend.

 

I made it back to my car, parked several blocks away, and drove past the now-dark auditorium for one last look. The doors were closed and everyone was gone, save for one lone figure sitting on darkened steps. I stopped the car, hopped out, and offered him a lift if he needed one; nah, he said, I'm just waiting for my ride. I got back in the car, called my wife, and said "It was fun, and at the end, the cops showed up!"

...

First, he didn't pack up and leave when it was time to pack up and leave. Sure, it sucks that people didn't get to have their books signed. That's a bad situation, one caused by the completely unexpected turnout. The organizers could have planned better for it, if they'd had any inkling of the numbers that would show, but by the time it got to 11:00, it was still time to go.

 

The Activist San Diego folks were putting on a free event, no admission charge, therefore no big fund-raising (apart from donations) and limited choice of venue. I was told they'd used the school's facilities before, and had a good relationship with them. Mr. Moore breezes through and is free to leave problems behind him; the Activist San Diego organizers have to deal with any complications arising from his decision to stick around.

 

The janitors had a job to do; they couldn't simply shrug and allow people to stay all night. As it was, there were still a few dozen people waiting for signatures when the cops showed up around 11:35, so the signing would have gone on longer than that.

 

As I said before, the cops didn't come off as abusive, but rather as matter-of-fact and straight-forward. They didn't act like they were there to arrest droves of people for trespassing. I understand that some people, hearkening back to the days of the Civil Rights movement or more recently the Seattle protests, would probably have been willing to be arrested.

http://www.kynn.com/politics/moore/

Now, this person STILL supports him --- even though he basically showed that Moore was a complete prick to the working man (the janitors CEASED BEING PAID AFTER 11P) and that his version of events was not reality.

 

How can ANY logical person COMPETE with this cult of personality that surrounds this buffoon?

 

So why SHOULD his critics waste their time refuting him point by point when it only seems to build him up MORE in the eyes of the lemmings who seem to think he is worth mentioning.

 

He in Leni Reifenstahl --- times three.

 

I COULD mention that the staff of Mother Jones --- truly a BASTION of right-wing thought HATES the guy. I COULD mention that --- gasp --- he's actually a MEMBER OF THE NRA (which he is). I could mention that he hates small businesses as much as he hates big businesses (which he does) --- oh, and rest assured I can back up EVERY assertion here, if you REALLY want me to do so.

 

I could mention them --- but his followers won't care. People always gripes that Rush Limbaugh's fans were "brain-dead zombies" who'd agree with anything the man said.

 

Moore fans are infinitely worse.

-=Mike

...BTW, just so his fans know --- you can create ties between Moore and bin Laden also, if you put forth a little effort.

[Guest Smues]

Fuck what a prick. Reading that made me hate him more. Oh my god I had a place rented until 11pm and they expected me to leave at 11pm! DAMN YOU AMERICA!

[Betty Houle 0]

I loved Bowling for Columbine, and this movie should be even better....

I'm with you on that point!

[Betty Houle 0]

To be fair, some good movies have won the Palm D'orr, most notably Pulp Fiction. It doesn't have to be a super artsy movie.

Others:

The Third Man, Othello, Blow-Up, M*A*S*H, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Sex, Lies and Videotape, Barton Fink, and Secrets & Lies.

[Guest MikeSC]

To be fair, some good movies have won the Palm D'orr, most notably Pulp Fiction. It doesn't have to be a super artsy movie.

Others:

The Third Man, Othello, Blow-Up, M*A*S*H, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Sex, Lies and Videotape, Barton Fink, and Secrets & Lies.

M*A*S*H was hardly a great movie. Time has done a number on that thing.

-=Mike

...BTW, the no-selling of my post is WHY Moore critics stick to fat jokes. Actual facts seem to not matter to his lemmings

[Betty Houle 0]

To be fair, some good movies have won the Palm D'orr, most notably Pulp Fiction. It doesn't have to be a super artsy movie.

Others:

The Third Man, Othello, Blow-Up, M*A*S*H, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Sex, Lies and Videotape, Barton Fink, and Secrets & Lies.

M*A*S*H was hardly a great movie. Time has done a number on that thing.

I still think it's a great movie. And it certainly deserved to win at the time.

[Damaramu 0]

Thing is....I see where MikeSC is coming from.

 

I've always considered myself a pretty middle of the road guy. I'm registered as a Democrat but I'll probably vote for Bush in the next election because I haven't minded the job he's done so far and John Kerry talks out both sides of his ass. I try to look at both sides when it comes to voting and political issues and decide which side I lean towards....I don't just agree with everything my party says.

 

Now I have a friend that is a HARDCORE radical. This guy's head is like a brick wall. You cannot convince him of anything right the government or the president has done. Anything. He gets all of his information from internet radicals and then spouts it as truth. "Oh well the government lied to us! I read this on a news website and it must be a lie! But this I got from some random guy who's beliefs run alongside mine.......he's right god dammit!"

So he's right when he's talking about the extreme leftists and radicals not listening to a damn word. You can't get through to the people. Even facts don't make it through there concrete skulls.

[Guest MikeSC]

I still think it's a great movie. And it certainly deserved to win at the time.

I re-watched it a few years back --- along with "The Graduate" --- and only one of those 2 deserve to be listed in the pantheon of great films.

 

And the one ain't "M*A*S*H"

Now I have a friend that is a HARDCORE radical. This guy's head is like a brick wall. You cannot convince him of anything right the government or the president has done. Anything. He gets all of his information from internet radicals and then spouts it as truth. "Oh well the government lied to us! I read this on a news website and it must be a lie! But this I got from some random guy who's beliefs run alongside mine.......he's right god dammit!"

So he's right when he's talking about the extreme leftists and radicals not listening to a damn word. You can't get through to the people. Even facts don't make it through there concrete skulls.

And --- to go ahead and cut THIS off --- a radical right-wing filmmaker who made "major motion pictures" like this would likely be just as obnoxious. There just AREN'T ANY.

 

At a point in the future, all of his "fans" today will claim that they never liked the guy.

 

BTW, from mooreexposed.com --- the ties between Michael Moore and Osama bin Laden:

In Dude, Where's My Country, Michael Moore's conspiracy theory consists of tying the Bush family together with the bin Ladens and the Saudis (whom he regards as little better, in fact arguing that they and not Osama bin Laden -- "how could a guy, sitting in a cave in Afghanistan hooked up to dialysis, have directed and overseen the actions of nineteen terrorists for two years...." (p. 16).). The ties to the bin Ladens, Moore maintains, run through the Carlyle Group, to which both Bush Sr. and Jr. have ties, and in which the bin Ladens had an investment.

 

Let's use Moore's own approach . . . .[begin ominous music] . . . .

 

And probe the shadowy connections between Moore and the bin Ladens.

 

Moore's next film, Farenheit 911, is being underwritten by Miramax, to the tune of several million dollars. Miramax is a subsidiary of the Disney empire.

 

While Disney derives a lot of its income from Disney sweatshops in third world countries, that's not its only source of financing. It needed serious capital -- billions -- for its expansion into Euro Disney, and to bail out that project when it started to tank. And guess with whom Disney hopped into bed at that point?

 

To start with . . . the Carlyle Group with (Moore tells us) its bin Laden monies.

 

With the help of its 'access capitalists' such as Baker and Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal (whom the firm helped add to his fortune in a 1991 Citicorp stock transaction), [my note: remember the Prince's name; you'll see it again in this shadowy trail] Carlyle made deals in the Middle East and Western Europe (including a bailout of Euro Disney) in the mid-1990s. Source

 

Carlyle numbers "Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Alsaud of Saudi Arabia, and Osama bin Laden's estranged family among its high-profile clientele." Source.

 

Ah yes, the Prince....

 

About HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin AbdulAziz Alsaud

 

HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and trusts for his benefit hold major business investments in Citigroup, Apple Computer Inc., Motorola, AOL Time Warner, Saks Inc., EuroDisney and Walt Disney Company, the Teledesic satellite venture.... Source

 

Saudi Arabia's billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal announced on Tuesday new investments .... A statement from the prince`s office in Riyadh sent to Reuters said the new investments included stakes in Coca-Cola, Pepsi Co Inc, McDonald`s Corp, Walt Disney Co, . . .. His stakes in each of the above firms stood at $50 million, the statement said. Source

 

Back to Euro Disney. A major loss for the Disney Company, foundering until rescuers appeared. The Carlyle Group, and guess who?

 

A Saudi Arabian prince, Al-Waleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, swooped in to help rescue the struggling Euro Disney theme park, pledging to invest up to $500 million in Mickey Mouse's European home near Paris.

 

New Orleans Times-Picayune, Thursday, June 2, 1994, p. C-1. The Prince wound up a virtual Disney partner (Disney owns 39%, he 24%). And Disney is now turning to him for a second bailout.

 

So along comes a filmmaker who:

 

Has produced works which are the standard primers for anti-Americanism today;

 

Has put out movies and books provide the emotional underpinning for terrorism (If the US is, as he argues, a violent bully which kills thousands of third-world innocents, overthrows democracies, and supports dictatorships, it's hard to see anti-American terrorism as evil; in fact, it would seem more like a struggle of heroic underdogs);

 

Has plans for a new film which will hopefully un-elect a president who defeated and ejected the Taliban; and

 

Which (if it tracks his book Dude, Where's My Country) will suggest Osama bin Laden may not have done it, and in any event point the finger at everyone but him ....

 

And suddenly a company backed by an awful lot of bin Laden connected money (by his own definition) wants to pump millions into his film.

 

In short, I can (in about eight hours of research) produce a sample of paranoid ideation which is quite as plausible as Moore's Farenheit 911.

http://mooreexposed.com/paranoia.html

Gotta LOVE those guys.

-=Mike

[Damaramu 0]

Yeah extremist from all side's are bad.

It's just I've dealt with the left wing radical the most.......and it drives me nuts!

[Betty Houle 0]

I still think it's a great movie. And it certainly deserved to win at the time.

I re-watched it a few years back --- along with "The Graduate" --- and only one of those 2 deserve to be listed in the pantheon of great films.

 

And the one ain't "M*A*S*H"

I had the exact opposite reaction (and I'm not even trying to be argumentive)! I thought "The Graduate" came across as completely dated and unauthentic. I can't think of this as a great movie. I think M*A*S*H holds up much better. Just a matter of opinion!

[Guest Jimmy Saint]

M*A*S*H is and always should be regarded as a classic by films fans. The Graduate would be one which "time has done a number on". Still a fun watch though for the performances of the leads.

 

 

I prefer the Moore who made Roger and Me and the TV shows he made than the present day one. I'll still watch his work though as I find his approach refreshing and amusing.

 

 

Whether the new film is 100% proof or not. If it helps get rid of your simpleton president then thats a good thing in my eyes. If our prime minister really has to toady up to your leader I'd rather it not be the embarrassment you lot have in charge at the moment.

[Guest MikeSC]

M*A*S*H is and always should be regarded as a classic by films fans. The Graduate would be one which "time has done a number on". Still a fun watch though for the performances of the leads.

Sorry, but for me, "The Graduate" was a much better story. M*A*S*H's plot --- a generous term, to say the least --- was just terrible and the comedy --- or what I hope was comedy --- was unfunny to an extreme.

 

Then again, Altman is the most overrated director this side of, well, Michael Moore.

I prefer the Moore who made Roger and Me and the TV shows he made than the present day one. I'll still watch his work though as I find his approach refreshing and amusing.

The Moore who made "Canadian Bacon" was tolerable. Now, he is an insufferable windbag.

 

And I wasn't aware that lying and plagarizing was a "refreshing and amusing" good approach.

Whether the new film is 100% proof or not. If it helps get rid of your simpleton president then thats a good thing in my eyes. If our prime minister really has to toady up to your leader I'd rather it not be the embarrassment you lot have in charge at the moment.

As if the US spends much time worrying about what other countries think of our leaders. Seeing as how a HUGE chunk of the world is getting nailed in the Oil-For-Food scandal, we have a hard time taking moral direction from most.

-=Mike

[Guest Jimmy Saint]

he is an insufferable windbag.

 

hey mr pot is that the kettle is calling you.

 

 

Seeing as how a HUGE chunk of the world is getting nailed in the Oil-For-Food scandal, we have a hard time taking moral direction from most.

 

Its not really moral direction its more the fact we are laughing at you lot for even considering reelecting someone as stupid as Bush is.

[Betty Houle 0]

M*A*S*H is and always should be regarded as a classic by films fans. The Graduate would be one which "time has done a number on". Still a fun watch though for the performances of the leads.

Sorry, but for me, "The Graduate" was a much better story. M*A*S*H's plot --- a generous term, to say the least --- was just terrible and the comedy --- or what I hope was comedy --- was unfunny to an extreme.

Sorry but I disagree. I find The Graduate to be stilted and boring now. The story is so dated and the characters (with the possible exception of Mrs. Robinson) are completely unmoving. Oh well.

[Guest MikeSC]

he is an insufferable windbag.

hey mr pot is that the kettle is calling you.

Wow, an insult that works for you, too. Kudos!

Seeing as how a HUGE chunk of the world is getting nailed in the Oil-For-Food scandal, we have a hard time taking moral direction from most.

Its not really moral direction its more the fact we are laughing at you lot for even considering reelecting someone as stupid as Bush is.

Feel free.

 

We laugh that the world thinks their opinions are relevant.

 

What would the UN do if we chose to ignore them? Condemn us for eternity? OOOOO!

-=Mike

[Guest whatitistoburn]

For some reason, I didn't walk away from BFC worrying about gun violence in as much as I walked away with the whole "feeding people fear in the media" thing. That plus a media theory class did wonders for my tv watching.

 

I like Moore's films. They're propaganda peices. I don't know if I necessarily say that he was putting the nazi's in a good light, but I can see the point. That said, they're well done propaganda peices, in my opinion.

[Betty Houle 0]

Here's an interesting piece by Frank Rich of the New York Times:

 

Michael Moore's Candid Camera

 

Published: May 23, 2004

 

 

“But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer."

— Barbara Bush on "Good Morning America,"

March 18, 2003

 

SHE needn't have worried. Her son wasn't suffering. In one of the several pieces of startling video exhibited for the first time in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," we catch a candid glimpse of President Bush some 36 hours after his mother's breakfast TV interview — minutes before he makes his own prime-time TV address to take the nation to war in Iraq. He is sitting at his desk in the Oval Office. A makeup woman is doing his face. And Mr. Bush is having a high old time. He darts his eyes about and grins, as if he were playing a peek-a-boo game with someone just off-camera. He could be a teenager goofing with his buds to relieve the passing tedium of a haircut.

"In your wildest dreams you couldn't imagine Franklin Roosevelt behaving this way 30 seconds before declaring war, with grave decisions and their consequences at stake," said Mr. Moore in an interview before his new documentary's premiere at Cannes last Monday. "But that may be giving him credit for thinking that the decisions were grave." As we spoke, the consequences of those decisions kept coming. The premiere of "Fahrenheit 9/11" took place as news spread of the assassination of a widely admired post-Saddam Iraqi leader, Ezzedine Salim, blown up by a suicide bomber just a hundred yards from the entrance to America's "safe" headquarters, the Green Zone, in Baghdad.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" will arrive soon enough at your local cineplex — there's lots of money to be made — so discount much of the squabbling en route. Disney hasn't succeeded in censoring Mr. Moore so much as in enhancing his stature as a master provocateur and self-promoter. And the White House, which likewise hasn't a prayer of stopping this film, may yet fan the p.r. flames. "It's so outrageously false, it's not even worth comment," was last week's blustery opening salvo by Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. New York's Daily News reported that Republican officials might even try to use the Federal Election Commission to shut the film down. That would be the best thing to happen to Michael Moore since Charlton Heston granted him an interview.

Whatever you think of Mr. Moore, there's no question he's detonating dynamite here. From a variety of sources — foreign journalists and broadcasters (like Britain's Channel Four), freelancers and sympathetic American TV workers who slipped him illicit video — he supplies war-time pictures that have been largely shielded from our view. Instead of recycling images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center on 9/11 once again, Mr. Moore can revel in extended new close-ups of the president continuing to read "My Pet Goat" to elementary school students in Florida for nearly seven long minutes after learning of the attack. Just when Abu Ghraib and the savage beheading of Nicholas Berg make us think we've seen it all, here is yet another major escalation in the nation-jolting images that have become the battleground for the war about the war.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is not the movie Moore watchers, fans or foes, were expecting. (If it were, the foes would find it easier to ignore.) When he first announced this project last year after his boorish Oscar-night diatribe against Mr. Bush, he described it as an exposé of the connections between the Bush and bin Laden dynasties. But that story has been so strenuously told elsewhere — most notably in Craig Unger's best seller, "House of Bush, House of Saud" — that it's no longer news. Mr. Moore settles for a brisk recap in the first of his film's two hours. And, predictably, he stirs it into an over-the-top, at times tendentious replay of a Bush hater's greatest hits: Katherine Harris, the Supreme Court, Harken Energy, AWOL in Alabama, the Carlyle Group, Halliburton, the lazy Crawford vacation of August 2001, the Patriot Act. But then the movie veers off in another direction entirely. Mr. Moore takes the same hairpin turn the country has over the past 14 months and crash-lands into the gripping story that is unfolding in real time right now.

Wasn't it just weeks ago that we were debating whether we should see the coffins of the American dead and whether Ted Koppel should read their names on "Nightline"? In "Fahrenheit 9/11," we see the actual dying, of American troops and Iraqi civilians alike, with all the ripped flesh and spilled guts that the violence of war entails. (If Steven Spielberg can simulate World War II carnage in "Saving Private Ryan," it's hard to argue that Mr. Moore should shy away from the reality in a present-day war.) We also see some of the 4,000-plus American casualties: those troops hidden away in clinics at Walter Reed and at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital in Fort Campbell, Ky., where they try to cope with nerve damage and multiple severed limbs. They are not silent. They talk about their pain and their morphine, and they talk about betrayal. "I was a Republican for quite a few years," one soldier says with an almost innocent air of bafflement, "and for some reason they conduct business in a very dishonest way."

Of course, Mr. Moore is being selective in what he chooses to include in his movie; he's a polemicist, not a journalist. But he implicitly raises the issue that much of what we've seen elsewhere during this war, often under the label of "news," has been just as subjectively edited. Perhaps the most damning sequence in "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the one showing American troops as they ridicule hooded detainees in a holding pen near Samara, Iraq, in December 2003. A male soldier touches the erection of a prisoner lying on a stretcher underneath a blanket, an intimation of the sexual humiliations that were happening at Abu Ghraib at that same time. Besides adding further corroboration to Seymour Hersh's report that the top command has sanctioned a culture of abuse not confined to a single prison or a single company or seven guards, this video raises another question: why didn't we see any of this on American TV before "60 Minutes II"?

 

 

 

Don Van Natta Jr. of The New York Times reported in March 2003 that we were using hooding and other inhumane techniques at C.I.A. interrogation centers in Afghanistan and elsewhere. CNN reported on Jan. 20, after the Army quietly announced its criminal investigation into prison abuses, that "U.S. soldiers reportedly posed for photographs with partially unclothed Iraqi prisoners." And there the matter stood for months, even though, as we know now, soldiers' relatives with knowledge of these incidents were repeatedly trying to alert Congress and news organizations to the full panorama of the story.

Mr. Moore says he obtained his video from an independent foreign journalist embedded with the Americans. "We've had this footage in our possession for two months," he says. "I saw it before any of the Abu Ghraib news broke. I think it's pretty embarrassing that a guy like me with a high school education and with no training in journalism can do this. What the hell is going on here? It's pathetic."

We already know that politicians in denial will dismiss the abuse sequence in Mr. Moore's film as mere partisanship. Someone will surely echo Senator James Inhofe's Abu Ghraib complaint that "humanitarian do-gooders" looking for human rights violations are maligning "our troops, our heroes" as they continue to fight and die. But Senator Inhofe and his colleagues might ask how much they are honoring soldiers who are overextended, undermanned and bereft of a coherent plan in Iraq. Last weekend The Los Angeles Times reported that for the first time three Army divisions, more than a third of its combat troops, are so depleted of equipment and skills that they are classified "unfit to fight." In contrast to Washington's neglect, much of "Fahrenheit 9/11" turns out to be a patriotic celebration of the heroic American troops who have been fighting and dying under these and other deplorable conditions since President Bush's declaration of war.

In particular, the movie's second hour is carried by the wrenching story of Lila Lipscomb, a flag-waving, self-described "conservative Democrat" from Mr. Moore's hometown of Flint, Mich., whose son, Sgt. Michael Pedersen, was killed in Iraq. We watch Mrs. Lipscomb, who by her own account "always hated" antiwar protesters, come undone with grief and rage. As her extended family gathers around her in the living room, she clutches her son's last letter home and reads it aloud, her shaking voice and hand contrasting with his precise handwriting on lined notebook paper. A good son, Sergeant Pedersen thanks his mother for sending "the bible and books and candy," but not before writing of the president: "He got us out here for nothing whatsoever. I am so furious right now, Mama."

By this point, Mr. Moore's jokes, some of them sub-par retreads of Jon Stewart's riffs about the coalition of the willing, have vanished from "Fahrenheit 9/11." So, pretty much, has Michael Moore himself. He told me that Harvey Weinstein of Miramax had wanted him to insert more of himself into the film — "you're the star they're coming to see" — but for once he exercised self-control, getting out of the way of a story that is bigger than he is. "It doesn't need me running around with my exclamation points," he said. He can't resist underlining one moral at the end, but by then the audience, crushed by the needlessness of Mrs. Lipscomb's loss, is ready to listen. Speaking of America's volunteer army, Mr. Moore concludes: "They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is, remarkably, their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?"

"Fahrenheit 9/11" doesn't push any Vietnam analogies, but you may find one in a montage at the start, in which a number of administration luminaries (Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell) in addition to the president are seen being made up for TV appearances. It's reminiscent of Richard Avedon's photographic portrait of the Mission Council, the American diplomats and military figures running the war in Saigon in 1971. But at least those subjects were dignified. In Mr. Moore's candid-camera portraits, a particularly unappetizing spectacle is provided by Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of both the administration's Iraqi fixation and its doctrine of "preventive" war. We watch him stick his comb in his mouth until it is wet with spit, after which he runs it through his hair. This is not the image we usually see of the deputy defense secretary, who has been ritualistically presented in the press as the most refined of intellectuals — a guy with, as Barbara Bush would have it, a beautiful mind.

Like Mrs. Bush, Mr. Wolfowitz hasn't let that mind be overly sullied by body bags and such — to the point where he underestimated the number of American deaths in Iraq by more than 200 in public last month. No one would ever accuse Michael Moore of having a beautiful mind. Subtleties and fine distinctions are not his thing. That matters very little, it turns out, when you have a story this ugly and this powerful to tell.

[Guest MikeSC]

You know what's REAL funny about his Palm d'Or win? While only one of the judges was French --- THREE had big money deals with...MIRAMAX! And Miramax is WELL known for its whoring to get its movies major awards. Just saying that it is a little bit odd.

 

ALSO, odd that for the first time EVER --- judges were permitted to discuss their decision. Never happened BEFORE this year.

 

A little weird, no?

 

Anyway, I'm always amazed at how Rich has the time to write when he's so busy blowing Moore. He's just the Goebbels to Moore's Reifenstahl.

 

However, it's par for the course for the NYT:

The New York Times PR campaign for Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 continues unabated as the count has now reached 21 stories in 17 days. The list now includes a new Op-Ed column from Frank Rich, several on the film's "surprise" awarding of the Palm d'Or in addition to a profile of Moore, an unsigned editorial, a Letter to the Editor and stories related to Moore's bogus claims about his distribution deal.

http://www.thenationaldebate.com/

The New York Times must have an equity stake in Michael Moore's "comedy" Farenheit 9/11. How else to explain the non-stop coverage accorded to Moore's new film which has yet to be released?

 

What is especially amusing is the writing of Jim Rutenberg who, having actively propogated Moore's admittedly fabricated distribution controversy, continues to reference to controversy as if it was real. Ten days after Moore admitted that he made up his story about Disney to generate attention for his film, Rutenberg begins his story today with "The Michael Moore documentary the Walt Disney Company deemed too partisan to distribute ..." http://www.thenationaldebate.com/blogger/archive/2004_05_01_TND-ARCHIVE.htm#108499458890598741

And, odds are, NONE of them are negative.

 

But don't worry about finding Moore appealing. Lots of people in Germany LOVED "Triumph of the Will". Heck, a nice chunk of the French loved it, too. I imagine it feels nice to be a total follower --- OK, I doubt it does, but if that works for the Moore lemmings, more power to them.

-=Mike

...You know, Moore COULD go the Gibson route and finance the release HIMSELF...

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Once I heard the words "Frank Rich" I just scrolled down to see how Mike responded to it.

 

No way I'm wasting my time reading what Frank Bitch has to say...

[Betty Houle 0]

You know what's REAL funny about his Palm d'Or win? While only one of the judges was French --- THREE had big money deals with...MIRAMAX! And Miramax is WELL known for its whoring to get its movies major awards. Just saying that it is a little bit odd.

I smell a rat...

 

To the Batcave, old chum!

[Guest MikeSC]

You know what's REAL funny about his Palm d'Or win? While only one of the judges was French --- THREE had big money deals with...MIRAMAX! And Miramax is WELL known for its whoring to get its movies major awards. Just saying that it is a little bit odd.

I smell a rat...

 

To the Batcave, old chum!

Why, when I can much more easily spend my time calling him "fat" and anxiously await the heart attack that will take him away from us?

-=Mike

...Moore: Leni for a new generation

[Betty Houle 0]

Why, when I can much more easily spend my time calling him "fat" and anxiously await the heart attack that will take him away from us?

Hope he's not on the Atkins diet.

 

I love topical humor.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

You know what's REAL funny about his Palm d'Or win? While only one of the judges was French --- THREE had big money deals with...MIRAMAX! And Miramax is WELL known for its whoring to get its movies major awards. Just saying that it is a little bit odd.

So instead of this being a political statement, this is just good old fashioned vote buying? My faith in humanity is restored.

 

-let's just say it moved me...INTO A BIGGER HOUSE!

[Guest MikeSC]

Why, when I can much more easily spend my time calling him "fat" and anxiously await the heart attack that will take him away from us?

Hope he's not on the Atkins diet.

 

I love topical humor.

Don't worry. Moore will get nothing but fat jokes from here on out because, as I proved here, actual facts don't slow down his fanbase.

-=Mike

[Guest INXS]

I can't wait to see the movie. I'm not going to watch it and take what it contains at face value though - Moore has a habit of distorting the truth.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

It's OK, INXS, you can say you like Mikey. No need to lie.

 

You will never really be the next hunger4unger, but you're still special in your own way. I just have to figure out how...

[Art Sandusky 0]

MikeSC: Screaming about how much he disagrees with stuff until his face turns red while no one's mind changes.

[Guest croweater]

Yeah extremist from all side's are bad.

It's just I've dealt with the left wing radical the most.......and it drives me nuts!

I agree with you here.

Generally the radical right wingers are obnoxious more than anything and they don't seem to be as openly stupid as the left. They seem to be able to back up there arguments better than the radical left also. (I mean generally, of course there will be a few complete idiot rights. But here in Australia, not so much)

 

The radical left wingers however just annoy the flying fuck out of you. Instead of being obnoxious they're more ignorant, which I find worse, and almost all of them are hypocritical in some way.

 

In Tasmania, where I live, it's pretty much all forest and so hippies abound and roam the streets freely.... here are some of the things I've heard them say to me:

 

"I think it's disgusting that they have a nuclear medicine section at the hospital, did you know they make bombs out of the left over radiation?"

 

"Incineration is bad, they're burning things and creating toxins which go into the air and cause bad stuff like cancer, and I don't wanna have little kids walking around getting cancer" **the guy then proceeded to blow smoke in my face**

 

and you can't have a fucking logical conversation with any of them about any issues because they so whole heartedly believe they're right.

 

I tried to have a conversation to my friend who worked for Greenpeace about genetic engineering (he'd just got arrested during a protest against it) and he knew absolutely nothing about it. I mean, I'm not an expert but I was pretty much talking it through with myself.

 

Me: Why aren't you for geneticly engineered food?

 

Him: because it's not natural to mess with stuffs DNA.

 

Me: but they're making it better so crops fail less and food is generally more nutritious.

 

Him: Yeah, but they're changing it's DNA, it might contaminate natural crops

 

Me: what.....and make them more nutritious and healthy?

 

Him: No, it will contaminate them because they've been genetically modified.

 

Me: well, then it's better? anyway, GE crops, being more sustainable and cheaper and easier to grow can help out 3rd world countries.

 

Him:....

 

Me:.... but generally the stuff we sell them isn't sustainable and so they have to keep buying it from us which really isn't fair for us to do that.

 

Him: Yeah it should be banned because we're making money off them!

 

Me:....., no, we should change so we sell the proper sustainable stuff, not ban it.

 

Him: no, it shouldn't be used at all because they're selling them shit.

 

..... it went on like that for a while. Generally the extremists are just told what to do and aren't intelligent to back up their own arguments.

 

.....wow, I'm ranting,

 

I must have some deep resentment for stupid people.

 

...

 

...

 

oh yeah, the topic.

 

People shouldn't judge it for it's truthful or untruthful content untill they see it because they have no idea just how believiable the information is.

[Betty Houle 0]

Why, when I can much more easily spend my time calling him "fat" and anxiously await the heart attack that will take him away from us?

Hope he's not on the Atkins diet.

 

I love topical humor.

Don't worry. Moore will get nothing but fat jokes from here on out because, as I proved here, actual facts don't slow down his fanbase.

-=Mike

Excellent! Presumably your posts will be shorter and easier to ignore now!

 

I was, of course, referencing the whole Atkins-heart-problem-lawsuit stuff, in case anyone didn't get my "joke".