Michael Moore, Hero or Rogue

hey setanta.

get your own damn popcorn, boss!

you can download a free copy of F 911 here.

http://hubproject.org/news/2004/06/794.php

but if you dont like looks of the site, there are others where you can download the movie...google it

moore doesn't mind as long as its for personal use.

what a country, eh? more like china each day.

oh, bernie. right on baby! nice stuff.

0 Replies

Cheers, Kuv . . . sadly, i used the last bag of popcorn here, and the stores are closed now . . .

0 Replies

Set, Not to worry; I have popcorn. Download and give us a yell when you're ready to show! Wink

Is virtual popcorn okay?

0 Replies

It'll have to do CI . . .

0 Replies

blatham wrote:

craven wrote
Quote:
It don't find it, at all, objectionable when you lament the possibility of right wing polemics following on the heels of left wing polemics. The prospect of Moore continuing his career is an ugly one to me.

What I do take issue with is your insistence that left wing polemics (and Moore's in particular) are somehow less polemical that those of the right wing (and Coulter's in particular).
I do not claim Moore has been less 'polemical' than Coulter. But I do claim that the nature or quality of their polemics are differentiatable and important. And that those differences might be measured in fallacies per column inch, general meanness of spirit, and probably some other criteria that would become evident if one were to, for example, take three pages from either person's latest book and analyze them. Which is an exercise I'd be happy to engage in about seven days.

I look forward to it.

As for your analysis of the film (which I have now resigned myself to seeing): Moore is saying "Look, the standard justifications and rationales that this administration advances for what they are doing in the Middle East just don't make sense. They only make sense if you add in these other big money factors"
You may be right, I'll return to it after I see the film, but having seen his work before and listening to and reading his interviews, I'm quite inclined to believe that Moore intended to make ominous connections (even if he doesn't believe them himself) between Bush and the Saudis that transcend
family oil deals.
No, I do not think that so at all, but I have not read any of Moore's books. I'm familiar with his documentaries and some ten episodes of his two TV shows. I understand his targets to be social inequalities and injustices, 'unfettered' capitalism, government by the few for the few, and cultural mythologies which facilitate the above.

I didn't say you thought so, I said I thought so, but I'll reserve final judgment until I see the film.

0 Replies

I just got back from seeing Fahrenheit 9/11, and, since no one asked me, I'm going to offer a few remarks on the movie:

1. The theater was packed. This shouldn't be something noteworthy (theaters have been packed everywhere in the US), but this particular theater is rarely crowded (I saw all three "Lord of the Rings" films there in the first week of release, and there were, on each occasion, no more than two dozen people in attendance). Also, it's an independent theater (not affiliated with any national or regional chain), so it was particularly gratifying to see it doing such good business.

2. I'm a big fan of Michael Moore -- I was prescient enough to videotape most of the episodes of "TV Nation," knowing quite well that the series would be cancelled and never shown in reruns (right on both counts). Both "TV Nation" and "The Awful Truth" were, in my opinion, brilliant pieces of comedy-agitprop, true landmarks in television history.

Nevertheless, I am also aware of Moore's significant failings. His genuine concern for the plight of minorities and the economic underclass of this country often blinds him to harsh realities. Perhaps the most signal instance of this kind of blindspot is his baffling, persistent belief that O.J. Simpson was framed for murder by the LAPD solely because he's black. In a similar vein, he is often far too eager to believe in sinister, furtive conspiracies on the part of the privileged and powerful.

It is, therefore, both unsurprising and ironic that Moore grounds much of F9/11 on a far-fetched conspiracy theory, suggesting that the connection between Bush, the Saudis, and the American oil industry led directly to the war in Iraq. Unsurprising because Moore is wont to believe in such farfetched conspiracy theories. Ironic because Moore justifiably ridicules Bush for believing in farfetched conspiracy theories suggesting that the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda led to 9/11.

That's too bad, because the truth is both much simpler and more profound. I think one of the participants in the "Rebuilding Iraq" conference said something to the effect that "we wouldn't care if Iraq didn't have oil." That's the whole truth right there -- no elaborate conspiracy, no backroom deals, no money changing hands. And it's significant that, though someone says it in the movie, it's only said once, and it isn't Moore saying it.

3. On the other hand, Moore deserves credit for showing the "other" side of the Iraq war. Not the idealized vision of pre-war Iraq (that was a bit much) but rather the destruction, in terms of human lives, that goes on and that affects both the occupiers and the occupied. And anyone who thinks that the occupation is not creating terrorists should be forced to listen, repeatedly, to the woman who, standing in front of the rubble of a bombed-out building, calls down god's curses on the Americans.

4. Moore is also effective in pointing out the colossal hypocrisy of the war -- indeed, I think this is the strongest part of the film. Just one example: a scene shows an American soldier complaining that the Iraqis don't appreciate all the good things that the Americans are doing for them, juxtaposed with a scene of soldiers humiliating Iraqi prisoners (including taking photos with hooded prisoners -- shades of Abu Ghraib).

5. The other strong point of the film is its sometimes explicit, often implicit criticism of the American news media. If many of the stories and images contained in the film strike the viewer as new, that's because the news media that were supposed to be supplying those stories or images were not doing their jobs. For instance, that was certainly the first time that I had heard of the government-sponsored visit, in 2001, by a representative of the Taliban regime to the US. Moore knew about it (although he predictably tied it into yet another conspiracy theory); why didn't we?

6. On the whole, I enjoyed the film, as did most of those in attendance who gave it an ovation at the end. Moore definitely did not convince me that the US went to war to line the pockets of Halliburton execs, but it certainly reaffirmed my belief that the war is unjust and unjustifiable. I'm sure it was preaching to the choir, but, as Moore says, sometimes the choir needs a song to sing.

0 Replies

Joe, I can't see Fahrenheit 9/11 until July so can't comment on it yet, but your account sounds pretty consistent with the impression I got from Bowling for Columbine. A polemicist who has his heart in the right place, but pays too little attention to consistency checks. In spite of Moore's flaws, I'm looking forward to seing the film.

0 Replies

craven

I just lost about a dozen paragraphs of a response to you, and I haven't time for a week or so to do a rewrite. Sorry about that.

Also, apology to you and finn for earlier misattribution.

If you get cspan where you are, look for Mario Cuomo speaking at a New York Y about his book on Lincoln. You likely know he represented the Moore film in discussions with the film board entity which establishes ratings. In this talk, he offers up reasons why he is urging folks to see the film, even while noting the same problems in the film which Krugman, myself and others acknowledge. I don't know if one could find, within American politics today, an individual more respectful of the classical notions and techniques of political discourse, or of a love of reason, than Cuomo. These are values you and I share with him. You really ought to listen to what the fellow has to say.

0 Replies

Last quick note before I sign off for a bit...

As regards our varying notions of the importance of the oil resource within the dynamic of present US (and others' actions), might I suggest a weaker version of what Moore suggests.

As an example, when I did my degree in Education, there were two coincident themes running through teaching theory/practice. The first dealt with the practical consequences of dwindling school budgets and increasing enrollment. The second involved a 'new' strategy of classroom teaching, where students were teamed up to work together (they'd establish what needed to be read, who among them would read what, then they'd teach the others what they had learned).

It's not a stretch to see how the second facilitated some surcease to the problems arising from the first. But what was notable to me what that this relationship was NEVER noted nor remarked upon by anyone.

Another example would be the dominance of an autocrat (Augustine) in the early church and the regimentation of doctrine precisely at a time when the church needed to hunker down and get organized and dogmatic if it wasn't to splinter and if it was to fulfill a broader organizing function within society. Think symbiosis.

I hope that's not too abstract for here, but I'm rushed and I wanted to point more generally to something which Moore addresses but perhaps incorrectly.

0 Replies

You'll have a better chance to see the film next week as the almost 40M box office has prompted the distributor Lions Gate to negotiate double the screens. No matter what anyone thinks of the film, it has become an unprecedented phenomena.
Play the pick at the parts game and the film still stands on its own.

0 Replies

A conservative blogger claims ...

Quote:

Posted 6:03 AM by Jack Stephens
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 IMPRESSIONS (I) - I honestly had to blink and check my eyes in the middle of Michael Moore's movie, which I saw Saturday evening, and I am now proud to be able to say that I know personally a genuine movie star.

During the period of 1999-2000, when I worked out 4 or 5 afternoons a week at the 24 Hour Fitness Marathon Plaza location at Second and Folsom Streets in San Francisco, I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Barry Reingold, a retired phone company employee.

Barry is the guy who is interviewed in Fahrenheit 9/11 on the shore of Lake Merritt in Oakland and claims that the FBI visited him at his apartment after a locker room discussion in which he said that Osama bin Laden "will never be as big an asshole as [President] Bush, who has bombed all over the world for oil." (Of course, neither Reingold nor Moore so much as hints at any evidence to corroborate Reingold's claim).

The Oakland Tribune has an article about Reingold's appearance in the movie here, which predictably takes Reingold at his word.

Barry is a very gregarious and friendly guy, and we used to chat each time we saw each other at the gym. Barry would sometimes stand for 45 minutes at a time and talk to people while they worked out, and I ribbed him about it a couple times, saying "Way to isolate those jaw muscles, Barry!" We got along great, and I know he would remember me.

I avoided talking politics with Barry, though, because he made very little effort to conceal the radical views that are so much in evidence in Moore's movie.

I remember that one day in particular in the locker room Barry offered me a couple issues of a communist newspaper, published by the "Progressive Labor Party," I think [PLP link]. I was taken aback and made some lame excuse to decline, and we changed the subject and kept yakking about something else.

Barry must be beside himself with joy to have hit the left-wing wacko big time in Moore's movie.

0 Replies

Au1929 wrote:

it was during an interview with the British paper The
Mirror that Moore unfurled what is perhaps the central insight of
his oeuvre, that Americans are kind of crappy.

If Mr. Moore is so much unsatisfied with his country and its people (and not only with President George W. Bush), why should not he consider emigration to some "better" place? For example, to Syria, N. Korea or to Cuba?

0 Replies

Cause he wants to make his own country a better place, steissd.

Joefromchicago, by the way, thank you very much for the review! That was a great read amidst all the sniping and cheerleading thats been going on about this film.

I am going to see the movie of course, btw, when it appears here. I expect not to like it and to get annoyed at Moore's populist rhetorics, and at the same time to get all riled up by what he shows about Bush, Iraq and America - so whether it'll be an enjoyable evening out I dunno. But I'm too intrigued to miss it.

0 Replies

nimh wrote:

Joefromchicago, by the way, thank you very much for the review! That was a great read amidst all the sniping and cheerleading thats been going on about this film.

Thanks.

By the way, I'd hate to see F9/11 -- or any movie, for that matter -- in a Dutch cinema. I'm sure I'd spend all of my time yelling "Hey, you giant Dutchmen! Down in front!"

0 Replies

Well, thats why just last year, they invented these new modern kind of cinemas, a revolutionary change ...

See, the way it works is they have the seating area floor kinda like sloping upwards, so that a row of chairs will be, like, higher than the one before it! Dude! You dont have to, like, peer through between the heads anymore, you can just like - see straight over 'em!

Its great, really. I cant think of why they didnt think of it earlier. Now I'm hoping, you know, that the other cinemas in town will rebuild like that, too, cause now its just the one and Ive seen goldeneye a coupla times already now ... cant wait until die another day starts playing here!

0 Replies

Not exactly about Mr Moore, but related to GWBush and comany. Just received from Australia.
********************

At 01:31am, Tim Blair wrote:

>Your point eludes me, Murf.

My point is this, Tim:

While George W. Bush was doing deals with the Saudis to return suspected Al Qaeda terrorists to their homeland (less than 12 months after the 9/11
attacks), our government was agreeing with the same man that the two Australian citizens held there should not be allowed even their most basic
legal rights.

Over two and a half years have passed while these two Australians have continued to rot in solitary confinement. Only very recently has Hicks been
actually charged with anything. His family has spoken to him twice.
Habib's family has not heard from him for many months and grave fears are held for his welfare. (We are talking here about our fellow citizens, Tim. It could just as easily be you or me.)

And yet John Howard, Philip Ruddock (both lawyers) and Alexander Downer (honorary doctor of civil laws) see nothing wrong with this. In fact,
they have been some the staunchest supporters of the Bush administration's subversion of human rights and civil liberties. It has taken the US
Supreme Court to point out that, at a time when Western society is faced with attacks on our civilisation and democracy, "we must preserve our
commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad."

The point is that, while Bush was mouthing platitudes about "fighting evil" and claimin that "the world had changed on September 11", and at the
same time the Australian government kept saying "me too, me too!!" to Bush's agenda, the American government was doing deals with the very same country that gave birth to every one of the 9/11 hijackers.

Does this not raise any concerns about how the Australian government treats its citizens?

Murf
*********
I'm sure this post will fly over the heads of Bush supporters and neocons.

0 Replies

Hey, Moore sure has the world talkin' -- on A2K he's spawned more threads on one subject than I believe in our history as a forum, beating out Mel Gibson. The film is at 56M over the weekend and is poised to hit 100M which will be a benchmark for this kind of film. The film is on Ebert and Roeper's best films for the year to this date. He is making the old mantra come true of living well being the best revenge even though he has vowed to give 60% of the net profit to charities (which will be considerable 'cause most of the promotional costs have been shouldered by the rightwing dissenters bitching about the movie).

0 Replies

blatham wrote:

Last quick note before I sign off for a bit...

As regards our varying notions of the importance of the oil resource within the dynamic of present US (and others' actions), might I suggest a weaker version of what Moore suggests.

I hope that's not too abstract for here, but I'm rushed and I wanted to point more generally to something which Moore addresses but perhaps incorrectly.

I may be missing your point, but I think there very definitely is a clear link between oil and Iraq. I hasten to add that I don't believe it is quite so simplistic as Bush invading Iraq to line the pockets of oil barons. However, the importance of oil in fashioning American Middle East policy is undeniable. Of course this doesn't mean that the invasion of Iraq was unjustified.

Without oil, the Middle East would almost certainly have had a very different modern history and one that probably would not have featured the United States in such a primary role.

It is impossible to describe with certainty an alternate history of the Middle East without oil. America could have found itself drawn into conflicts in the region due to Soviet border concerns, European colonial ties, and the presence of Israel, but it would have been for ideological and political reasons, not economics, and the necessity to preserve Western access to the region would not have been any where near as intense as it is in our actually history.

In any case, it is very clearly oil that has generated our intense interest in the region. Without oil, I doubt very much there would have been the first Gulf War or the follow up invasion of Iraq. Without oil there probably would not be a war going on between the West and Islamist extremists.

For good or for bad, oil has fueled our economy for quite some time now. Once hooked, we could hardly give it up. People have benefited from this dependence but they have not created it for their own benefit. If no one in America was getting rich directly from oil we would still have an enormous strategic interest in the oil rich Middle East.

All wars have multiple causative components, and most, if not all, have, to some extent, economics as one of those components. The extremely rich and powerful munitions manufacturers of Europe provided an important economic causation for WWI, but that was not the only cause.

Oil has brought America to the Middle East. Perhaps Israel would have brought America to the US in a oil free region of an alternate history, but without oil the arab enemies of Israel would not have likely received any support or sympathy from the rest of the world.

It is impossible to deny oil's importance to the history of the Middle East and America's interactions with the region, however this doesn't mean that each and every action taken by America within the region has been based solely on oil or that the invasion of Iraq was even directly connected to oil.

Having been brought to the region by oil, America has, through valid or invalid reasons, earned the enmity of Islamic fundamentalists who have turned to terrorism in waging a war against the West. Invading Iraq was a justifiably strategic move in the conduct of that war. If, in the oil free alternate history, America found itself in the same position with Islamic terrorists, an invasion of Iraq would be just as justifiable.

History doesn't flow from single causations. Oil is an important causation, but it is not the only one.

0 Replies

Here is an essay that describes my position so well (if more coherently) that it is eerie.

Subtle racism

Quote:

Subtle racism

How dare I describe as racist a movie that highlights the disenfranchisement of black voters and goes after the way in which military recruiters chase low-income minority youth? My claim is not that Moore is an overt racist, but that the movie unconsciously replicates a more subtle racism, one that we all have to struggle to resist.

This is what I was trying to say, that it "pandered" to racism and not that Moore is racist.

Quote:

First, there is one segment that invokes the worst kind of ugly-American nativism, in which Moore mocks the Bush administration's "coalition of the willing," the nations it lined up to support the invasion of Iraq. Aside from Great Britain there was no significant military support from other nations and no real coalition, which Moore is right to point out. But when he lists the countries in the so-called coalition, he uses images that have racist undertones. To depict the Republic of Palau (a small Pacific island nation), Moore chooses an image of stereotypical "native" dancers, while a man riding on an animal-drawn cart represents Costa Rica. Pictures of monkeys running are on the screen during a discussion of Morocco's apparent offer to send monkeys to clear landmines. To ridicule the Bush propaganda on this issue, Moore uses these images and an exaggerated voice-over in a fashion that says, in essence, "What kind of coalition is it that has these backward countries?" Moore might argue that is not his intention, but intention is not the only question; we all are responsible for how we tap into these kinds of stereotypes.

Robert Jensen articulated my own position better than I had.

0 Replies

I enjoyed the Robert Jensen article - it was a good one.

But I still disagree with the racism question. I disagree with it because I believe Moore's intent was to hammer home the fact that these countries were saying "yes we support this" but not offering anything other than verbal support. In essence Moore is posing the question "Did they really support the coalition or was this purely posturing in order to stay on the US 'a-list'?"

Note that in the following passage the author paraphrases the voiceover, rather than quoting it. I'm guessing that the direct quote wouldn't be as powerful for his argument.

Quote:

To ridicule the Bush propaganda on this issue, Moore uses these images and an exaggerated voice-over in a fashion that says, in essence, "What kind of coalition is it that has these backward countries?" Moore might argue that is not his intention, but intention is not the only question; we all are responsible for how we tap into these kinds of stereotypes.

I enjoyed Jensen's conclusion, which in my opinion, provides a good reason for people to see the film and to start talking about things.

Conclusion:

Quote:

The potential value of Moore's film will be realized only if it is discussed and critiqued, honestly. Yes, the film is under attack from the right, for very different reasons than I have raised. But those attacks shouldn't stop those who consider themselves left, progressive, liberal, anti-war, anti-empire or just plain pissed-off from criticizing the film's flaws and limitations. I think my critique of the film is accurate and relevant. Others may disagree. The focus of debate should be on the issues raised, with an eye toward the question of how to build an anti-empire movement. Rallying around the film can too easily lead to rallying around bad analysis. Let's instead rally around the struggle for a better world, the struggle to dismantle the American empire.

While people may disagree with many of moore's suggestions, I believe the overwhelming theme of this film is "Why have these things been going on?" - asking the viewer to think about things and to start asking questions - As opposed to "This is why these things have been going on."

**Edited once because I messed the quoting coding and once because of a typo**

0 Replies

Michael Moore, Hero or Rogue

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know