[lit-ideas] fahreheit
- From: dsavory@xxxxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 17:15:54 -0700
I saw Fahrenheit 9/11. I think ?Bowling for Columbine? was better. (I think
Morgan Spurlock?s ?Supersize Me? was better than both of them.)
There are, however, plenty of sound bites cleverly edited to convince you if
you weren?t convinced already that Dubya is indeed a moron and not just
someone who can be rendered inarticulate with a newscamera in his face. But
come on, has there been a softer target in the history of politics than Bush?
And the problem with American foreign policy is surely not that there is a
moron at the helm but that it follows the same pattern of exploitation,
humiliation and oppression as it has for over one hundred years with Bush
doing exactly what every other president has done.
Fahrenheit 9/11 is a little scattershot: Moore is so full of anger he doesn?t
develop a coherent case. Unlike Chomsky who marshalls facts into a series of
objections that are at least consistent within a singular theme, Moore is kind
of all over the map. He presents someone claiming there are more cops in
Manhattan than troops in Afghanistan attempting to root out Osama bin Laden,
but what?s the point? Should there have twice as many troops deployed? Ten
times? He makes a lot of ominous connections between the Saudi royal family
and the Bush family and leaves us with the ?stunner? that Saudis own something
like 7% of America but what?s the point? That Osama bin Laden (who is actually
quite close to all the other bin Ladens) would destroy something that they
have a huge financial stake in? Are we supposed to think Osama is as stupid as
Dubya?
Still, Moore does some things pretty well. I think he makes a nice case that
the soldiers in the war are not very clear why they?re in Iraq and he does a
really nice job with a woman who went from being pro-war to anti-war after her
son was killed. This proves the charge that he?s anti-soldier is wrong.
It?s appropriately funny in spots and horrifying in others but this should
have been a deeper dissection of the corporatist assumptions that govern the
political culture in Washington not a driveby bash at a moron.
David Savory
Vancouver
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