W
ith
Fahrenheit 9/11
,
Michael Moore has made more than a terrific film. By breaking out
of the usual art house documentaries, Moore has managed to bring
his trade-marked skewering of U.S. political scoundrels before millions.
Naturally
enough, howls of fulminating right-wing anger greeted the presumption
and audacity of that task. Not at first, though. At first these
guardians of our morals, beliefs, and patriotism tried to laugh
it off, dismissing Moore’s new project as once again “preaching”
to the choir.
But
the Disney folks knew better and tried to stop
Farenheit 9/11
in its tracks. When Moore walked off with the top prize at the Cannes
Film Festival, however, there was no stopping it. Smelling the money,
and remembering the success of Moore’s Academy Award-winning
Bowling for Columbine
, film distributors by the carload offered
to take the new film on. Eventually, however, Disney sold the rights
to Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the original producers of the film.
Nevertheless,
the Bush gang still wasn’t worried. Only pinkoes and liberals,
they said, would slap down $9 to see a documentary film. But when
the movie opened late in June and skyrocketed past all previous
records for documentaries, the Bush think-tankers began sweating.
They could live with sold-out showings in New York, San Francisco,
and Los Angeles. But reports of packed movie houses in cities like
Fayetteville, North Carolina, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, and scores of smaller towns across middle America are not
what Bush and Co. wanted to hear. Especially irksome were reports
of Republicans as well as GIs and Iraq war vets flooding local movie
houses and cheering Moore’s devastating critique of Bush and
the war in Iraq in towns adjacent to military bases.
That’s
when the far right got to work. Rush Limbaugh—who else? —immediately
declared the film “a pack of lies.” A hitherto little
known filmmaker announced the production of a film called
Michael
Moore Hates America
. A book titled
Michael Moore is a Big
Fat Stupid White Man
rolled off the presses in record time.
Christopher Hitchens, the one-time
Nation
writer now turned
war hawk, came up with a nine-page diatribe on the Internet. Among
his milder comments: “A sinister exercise in moral frivolity….
A spectacle of abject political cowardice,” and “a piece
of crap.”
Nor
were the Hollywood moguls who determine the ratings of films happy
about it all. In an act of petty vindictiveness, they tagged
Fahrenheit
9/11
with an “R” rating—despite the absence of
any sexual content and a handful of wartime violence scenes from
the press. Then there was the Las Vegas casino manager who kicked
Linda Ronstadt out of the hotel where she was staying and performing
for telling her audience: “There’s this guy who is a great
patriot and I think he loves his country deeply and he’s trying
to get the truth out. His name is Michael Moore and I’ve just
seen his fine movie,
Fahrenheit 9/11
.”
The
principal right-wing critique of
Fahrenheit 9/11
is that
it’s all lies and cheap shots. Well, there are a couple of
cheap shots, but the heart of the film and its most telling moments
are made up of verified statements from well-known newspapers from
the
New York Times
to the
Wall Street
Journal
,
videotapes of statements of real people, photos of real events,
etc. In case anyone wants to check, Moore hired the main fact-checker
for the
New Yorker
to review every statement and videotape
in the picture.
Moore’s
exposure of the blatant lies and obfuscations promoted by the Bush
gang are the real source of right wing anguish. A few examples:
(1)
Following the Supreme Court’s highly dubious coronation of
Bush’s “election” in 2000, there was the usual inauguration
parade. Anybody see it? Were readers aware of the huge protest that
accompanied the parade, the egg-tossing on Bush’s limousine
that kept him locked up in his car throughout and his eventual mad
scramble to cut the parade short? How many were aware of vicious
police attacks on demonstrators. Few, if any, since most media ignored
it. But
Fahrenheit 9/11
shows what actually happened.
(2)
When a joint session of Congress assembled to formally certify Bush’s
election, Black legislators mounted a protest, asserting that there
was overwhelming proof of tampering with the outcome, especially
in Florida. But according to the arcane rules of Congress, the protest
could not be considered unless at least one senator formally supported
it. Not one Republican stood up. No surprise there. But neither
did a single Democrat. Among those sitting on their hands are such
“liberals” as Barbara Boxer, Christopher Dodd, Joe Lieberman,
Joseph Biden, Tom Harkin, Barbara Mikulski, Ted Kennedy, John F.
Kerry, Charles Schumer, John Edwards, Patty Murray, and Democratic
Minority Leader Tom Daschle. The farce is presided over by Al Gore
in his capacity as vice-president and president of the Senate.
Farenheit
9/11
captures the entire travesty on film.
(3)
A clip from a TV news program in March 2001 shows Condaleeza Rice
and Colin Powell declaring that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of
mass destruction or the capabilities of getting them. It then switches
to a tape taken eight months later in which Rice and Powell assert
the exact opposite.
(4)
In one scene, Moore’s ubiquitous camera follows two Marine
recruiters looking for prospective enlistees. They don’t bother
talking to obviously well-heeled white young men. Instead they focus
on a shopping mall in downtown Flint, Michigan—one of the most
depressed communities in the country. There they encounter a group
of young, unemployed black men and offer them a variety of enticements
to sign on, even offering one young man with musical ambitions a
recording contract on the spot.
(5)
There’s another telling scene where Bush is addressing an assembly
of his fat cat supporters, calling them the “haves and have-mores,”
much to their boisterous delight.
(6)
One of the most telling depictions is a scene of George Bush in
an elementary school in Florida on September 11, 2001. He starts
reading the children a story called, “My Pet Goat,” when
an aide interrupts and whispers to him that a plane has struck the
World Trade Center. For the next seven minutes, Bush sits on a stool
in the classroom doing nothing and saying nothing. He clearly doesn’t
have the faintest clue of what to do or who to call.
(7)
One of the most powerful sequences in the film is the story of Lila
Lipscomb of Flint who calls herself a conservative Democrat, puts
out the flag every morning, and encourages her children to sign
up for the military. But a letter from her son in Iraq bitterly
declares, “Bush got us out here for nothing whatsoever. I’m
so furious right now, Mama.” A few weeks later, her son is
killed and she is consumed with rage and is forced to look at her
life and values in a new way. Lipscomb’s grief and grim determination
to get an explanation are almost unbearable to watch.
These
scenes and many more like them are the heart of the movie and the
reason so many viewers sit grimly silent through it, telling one
another in somewhat hushed tones, “I never knew that. Did you?”
The
Wall Street Journal
carried a report on showings of
Fahrenheit
9/11
in Fayetteville, North Caro- lina. More than half the audience
were GIs from Fort Bragg; some marines came from Camp Lejeune two
hours away; at the last minute, three soldiers from South Carolina
showed up. An army machine-gunner from Fort Bragg, who voted for
George Bush in 2000, commented after seeing
Fahrenheit 9/11
:
“That was pretty thought-provoking…. I guess I’m
a little disillusioned. I’ve got a lot more questions than
answers now” (
Wall Street Journal
, July 12, 2004).
Irwin Silber
was editor of
Sing Out!
, the
Guardian
,
and
Crossroads
. He is the author of numerous
books.
