Eve of Destruction

[Chris Knipp]

I agree with JustaFied in principle too. Context is essential; this is a truism, surely. The question is what context and when you need to seek outside help to get it. For a Buddhist raised without any education in other religions who has never read the Bible, some further preparation and "context" would be needed to understand Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. But since I was raised as a Christian in a Judeo-Christian culture and did study the Bible as a youth, I have plenty of "context" already. I also viewed plenty of other reviews and discussions of the film before expressing my opinion about it or respondong to the questions about The Passion's possible anti-semitism, etc., that JustaFied mentions.

We should not, of course, "just take Moore at his word." With Moore's Farenheit 9/11, just as with Mel's Passion, background knowledge is essential to evaluate the film, but I have lived the events Moore deals with and saturated myself with information about them for the past three years, so don't think it necessary for me to do any special research just to understand or evaluate it. What is most important to be on the same page in discussing Farenheit 9/11 is to look carefully at the film -- not just engage in a scattershot discussion of the issues it touches on, losing all direct reference to its specific look, sound, and contents; the information it conveys, and the way it conveys that information. That's the hard part: to focus on the film itself -- within its broader context, of course. Needless to say, that involves watching the film -- at least once -- more than once if necessary!

In the case of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Chavez: Inside the Coup), my praise of the film, perhaps somewhat naive at first, admittedly, led to my being provided with an endless supply of objections and lists of the film's "errors" by the Chavez opposition. I received and exchanged emails with several dozen of them to and from Caracas. Before and after these exchanges I did what reading and research I could to study the context of the film. I became more aware of the filmmakers' biases as a result, but wasn't led to reject its claims. I remain convinced of its essential validity.

I think native intelligence and the exercise of logic and analysis are the main tools we need in evaluating and discussing any polemical or factual film document. In other words, if your brain's working and you've been paying attention to current events, you've got what you need.

Moore makes his biases extremely clear.

If the arguments that've been presented on this thread in favor of Bush's policies are an example of the "broader context," then they're neither needed nor new. We have been hearing them for the past couple of years, and they haven't grown more convincing over time.

Again, what's so striking (and important) to me about this film is the images we don't get from other mainstream sources.

Fine. Which are those?

We're left with the difficult task of thinking for ourselves and formulating our own opinions.

Indeed. That's what we all try to do.

[Johann]

Fahrenheit 9/11 begins in a way that allows Moore to guide us, almost like children, in a labrynth of media that is controlled by wealthy, powerful people.

That's it. That's all this film is. He pieces together a very convincing expose on corruption and lies.
His point is very simple: If the government is for the people and by the people, why are the people being exploited and deceived?

The film opens with Al Gore winning the state of Florida.
Fox News channel reports that BUSH has won. (While confetti showers Gore and company) Bush has direct, immediate family members working in his favor at Fox and in the state gov't. I love the shot of George and Jeb sitting together and Bush confidently says to the camera "We WILL win Florida. You can write it down." You believe he'll win because Moore puts the shot in context.
Has anyone seen Horns and Halos? There's a clip of Bush on the campaign trail back before 2000 and he stands at a podium, glaring at his "supporters". He says: "You wonder why I'm here?! I'm here to get your vote." and he says it with such contempt for his listeners it seems as if this "campaigning thing" is beneath him. This is one of the reasons why I think he'll win in Nov. Bush is identical to Nixon in this respect: he hates campaigning. He hates "getting the votes". He'd rather pay someone off to seal his victory than earn it.

Moore goes from Bush's steal of the election to the floor of congress, (helmed by Gore himself) where he shows us an undeniably corrupt situation: all of those black members of congress who challenge Bush's election as President, and being shut out of having their say because no Senator will sign.

You can't argue with that. You can't contest that. That alone makes this film incendiary, and Bush should be shaking in his boots right now. The gig is up. Bush is not the elected President of the United States. He stole the election by scratching 16,000 black voters names off of the Florida ballot. That's crime and corruption of HUGE proportions. Giant scale.
I'll always remember that black woman in congress; "No-no senator has signed it, and I DON'T CARE that no senator has signed it! You can't argue with a filmed image.

Moore then continues to unmercifully rip Bush's administration apart. For once in my life it was nice to see the left say
"fuck it: I'm telling it like it is".

[JustaFied]

"Fine. Which are those?"

You know, what sticks with me about the film is how personal it is. We see beyond the curtain, in a way, we wipe away the veneer that's part of the "production value" of mainstream media.

Example: Bush still reading after the attacks. We don't see that elsewhere. That image is as haunting as anything else in the film. At the core, he's like a child waiting to be told what to do. That's what I take from that image.

Example: Florida Congressmen (and women), enraged that they can't get one Senator to sign their petition. There's nothing illegal here, this is part of the democratic process, but it's still necessary to show the personal impact of the election debacle. It's moving in a way that a Peter Jennings description would not be.

Example: The interview with the mother whose son died in Iraq. In looking at the bigger picture, we talk about "acceptable" number of casualties, collateral damage of precision bombing, etc., and it tends to become detached and impersonal in a way. Five marines died this week, ten less than last week, good news! But behind every single death there is a grieving family, and that should never be overlooked in pursuit of the goals of "the big picture". Moore's film personalizes the situation in a way that has been widely overlooked by other sources, and he provides a valuable service in this regard.

[Chris Knipp]

It's too late to write a review of Fahrenheit 9/11 because so many critics have had a go at it, so I have had a go at some of them instead. I also quote a couple that I like. And I point out a couple of the most serious real flaws of the movie -- not it's Michael Moore rudeness, but actual lacks or imbalances in the arguments.

But don't get me wrong. I love Michael Moore. For all his faults.

My piece you will find here: http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/vi....php?p=335#335

I also say one or two things about the significance of the movie. To me and, maybe, to you.

Please read it. http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/vi....php?p=335#335

[Sola]

Chris, nice articles. If you post them on here, people can reply, unless you dont want them sliced and diced by Anduril. Maybe it's better to leave them on your site actually.

solang

[Chris Knipp]

It's kind of long to post here but I can.

[pmw]

I wouldn't mind reading them in a new thread. It might give us a new place to start in talking about the film. Look forward to reading comments on your writings.
P

[Chris Knipp]

Okay. If you insist....

[Johann]

These anti-war protest slogans were found on some signs:

Who would Jesus bomb?
WAR begins with "DUBYA"
Frodo has failed- Bush has The Ring
Bush is proof that empty warheads are dangerous
Let's bomb Texas- they have oil too!
How did OUR oil get under THEIR sand?
A thousand points of light and one dim bulb...
How many lives per gallon?
PRE-EMPTIVE IMPEACHMENT!!!!!!


Here's a juicy morsel from the lips of Bush:

"I'm the commander- see, I don't need to explain- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation".

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.- Matthew 19:24


And here's a blistering piece of writing that sums up everything I feel: by the gonzo doctor himself, Hunter Thompson:

Good news is out of the question in this brutal year of our Lord, 2002. All markets collapsed about 3 days after George Bush moved into the White House....yeah, it was THAT fast. BOOM, presto, welcome to bombs and poverty.

The news is bad today, in America and for America.
There is nothing good or hopeful about it- except for Nazis, warmongers, and rich greedheads- and it is getting worse and worse in logarithmic progressions since the fateful bombing of the World Trade towers in New York. That will always be a festering low-watermark in this nation's violent history, but it was not the official birthday of the end of the American Century.

No. That occured on the night of the presidential election in the year 2000, when the nexus of power in this country shifted from Washington D.C. to "the ranch" in Crawford, Texas. The most disastrous day in American history was November 7, 2000. That day was when the TAKEOVER happened, when the generals and cops and right-wing Jesus-freaks seized control of the White House, the U.S. Treasury and our law-enforcement machinery.

So long to all that, eh? "Nothing will ever be the same again", the whorish President said at the time, "as of now we are in the grip of a National Security Emergency that will last for the rest of our lives ".

Fuck you, I quit. Mahalo.

[Chris Knipp]

I didn't like the way anduril, who has not seen the movie, managed with his dramatic departures and reentries to dominate this longest and most often viewed FilmWurld thread about Fahrenheit 9/11. However, since he dominated the thread, I'm using it to answer something he said. Somewhere here he has remarked that Iraq is really a pretty safe place to be now. That's an extraordinary claim, in view of the news coming out of Iraq. Let's talk about safety. Not only is Iraq ever more unsafe, it's also ever more corrupt, and US and corporate personnel are moving into all the former bastions of Saddam's power to continue their operations --and divert aid funds to their own corrupt uses (as Naomi Klein has recently reported from Baghdad in a piece for The Nation entitled "Shameless in Iraq" http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040712&s=klein).

"Peace," anduril wrote, is all about what the Iraq invasion is about. Allow me to quote from the eighth and most elaborate item in anduril’s eight-point argument to justify the US invasion of Iraq:

(anduril) On strategic grounds, Operation Iraqi Freedom and the development of a secular Iraqi state, comparable to Turkey, have had numerous positive consequences already and will have positive long-term consequences for Middle-East peace too.. . Operation Iraqi Freedom will serve as a visible demonstration of American commitments to peace in the Middle East.

In somebody's fantasy that no doubt was the case -- those somebodies being the neo-cons surrounding Bush and the personnel of the Project for a New American Century who devised the rationale anduril is summarizing at this point in this thread.

But the neocons are dangerously misled visionaries, whose bold imperial aims have led our country into a quagmire. The truth isn't pretty.... here's what Robert Fisk, the London Independent's award-winning Middle East correspondent, recently posted from Baghdad about the situation there. (You will find this and other Fisk columns on the website devoted to him, http://www.robert-fisk.com/.) The current piece (July 28, 2004) is entitled, "Baghdad is a city that reeks with the stench of the dead" and here is some of what he wrote:

The smell of the dead pours into the street through the air-conditioning ducts. Hot, sweet, overwhelming. Inside the Baghdad morgue, there are so many corpses that the fridges are overflowing. The dead are on the floor. Dozens of them. Outside, in the 46C (114F) heat, Qadum Ganawi tells me how his brother Hassan was murdered.

"He was bringing supper home for our family in Palestine Street but he never reached our home. Then we got a phone call saying we could have him back if we paid $50,000 [£27,500]. We didn't have $50,000. So we sold part of our home and many of our things and we borrowed $15,000 and we paid over the money to a man in a car who was wearing a keffiyeh scarf round his head.

"Then we got another phone call, telling us that Hassan was at the Saidiyeh police station. He was. He was blindfolded and gagged and he had two bullets in his head. They had taken our money and then they had killed him."

There is a wail of grief from the yard behind us where 50 people are waiting in the shade of the Baghdad mortuary wall. There are wooden coffins in the street, stacked against the wall, lying on the pavement.

Old men - fathers and uncles - are padding them with grease-proof paper. When the bodies are released, they will be taken to the mosque in coffins and then buried in shrouds. There are a few women. Most stare at the intruding foreigner with something approaching venom. The statistics of violent death in Baghdad are now beyond shame. Almost a year ago, there were sometimes 400 violent deaths a month. This in itself was a fearful number to follow the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. But in the first 10 days of this July alone, the corpses of 215 men and women were brought to the Baghdad mortuary, almost all of them dead from gunshot wounds. In the second 10 days of this month, the bodies of a further 291 arrived. A total of 506 violent deaths in under three weeks in Baghdad alone. Even the Iraqi officials here shake their heads in disbelief. "New Iraq" under its new American-appointed Prime Minister is more violent than ever.

Qadum Ganawi puts his hand on my arm. "Listen," he says. "My brother had two tiny children. One is only a year old. We have sold our house and borrowed $15,000. How can we ever pay this back? And we have nothing for it but the grief of losing my dear brother.

"He was a car importer so they thought he was rich. He wasn't. And, you know, his wife is Syrian. She went to Syria for a holiday with the two babies. She is there now. She doesn't know what has happened to her husband."

Trucks are arriving in the street beside us, a pick-up and a small lorry with corpses for autopsy. Tony Blair says it is safer here. He is wrong. Every month is a massacre in Baghdad. Thieves, rapists, looters, American troops at checkpoints and on convoys, revenge killers, insurgents, they are shooting down the people of this city faster than ever.

One man was shot dead by a US soldier as he overtook their convoy on the way to his Baghdad wedding. We found out only because his marriage was to have been celebrated in a hotel occupied by journalists. Another death I discovered only when an old Iraqi friend called on me last week. He wanted me to help him leave Iraq. Quickly. Now.

"I work for the Americans at the airport but I think I'm done for if I stay." Why? "Because my uncle worked at the airport for the Americans, just like me. My uncle was Abdullah Mohi. He was driving home the other night but they stopped him a hundred metres from his house. Then they took a knife and cut his throat. We found him drenched in blood at the steering wheel." Abbas looks at me with dead eyes. "Should I go to Jordan? Help me."

At the mortuary, a big, tall man, Amr Daher, walks up to me. "They killed one of our tribal leaders from the Dulaimi tribe," he says. "This morning, right in the middle of Al-Kut Square, just a couple of hours ago." Selman Hassan Salume was driving with his two teenage sons when three gunmen came alongside in a car and shot him dead. Both his sons were wounded, one seriously.

Hospital records tell only part of the story. In the blazing heat of an Iraqi summer, some families bury their dead without notifying the authorities. Some remain unidentified for ever, unclaimed. The Americans bring in corpses. When they do, there are no autopsies. The morticians will not say why. But the Ministry of Health has told doctors there should be no autopsies in these cases because the Americans will already have performed the operation.

Not long ago, six corpses arrived at the Baghdad mortuary after being brought in by US forces. Three were unidentified. Three had names but their families could not be found. All had suffered, according to the American records, "traumatic wounds to the head", the normal phrase for gunshot wounds. There were no autopsies. Death is now so routine even the most tragic of deaths becomes a footnote. A US tank collides with a bus north of Baghdad. Seven civilians are killed. The Americans agree to open an investigation. It makes scarcely a paragraph in the local press. Four days ago, a US M1A1 Abrams tank crossing the motorway at Abu Ghraib collided with a car carrying two girls and their mother, all of whom were crushed to death. It did not even make the news in Baghdad.

No wonder the occupying powers - or the "international forces" as we must now call them - steadfastly refuse to reveal the statistics of Iraqi dead, only their own

Even the deaths we do know about during the past 36 hours make shocking reading. At Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad, gunmen killed two Iraqi police officers travelling to their station. In Kirkuk, an Iraqi policeman, Luay Abdullah, was shot as he waited for a lift home after guarding an oil pipeline. A Kurdish woman and her two children were killed when someone sprayed their home in Kirkuk with gunfire. A Kurdish peshmerga guerrilla was murdered in a drive-by shooting.

A former government official was killed in Baghdad. Then yesterday afternoon, a senior civil servant at the Iraqi Interior Ministry in Baghdad was shot dead. In the town of Buhriz, hours of fighting between insurgents and US troops left 15 dead, according to the Americans. All, they said, were gunmen, although it almost always transpires that civilians are among the dead in such battles.

American documents say insurgent groups "have become more sophisticated and may be co-ordinating their anti-coalition efforts, posing an even more significant threat". There is an increase in drive-by shootings. And, a chilling remark this, for all would-be travellers in and out of Baghdad, the Americans believe "recent attacks on air assets suggest that all type of aircraft, civilian, fixed-wing and military ... are seen as potential targets of opportunity".

So the war is getting worse. The casualties are growing by the week. And Mr Blair thinks Iraq is safer.

So much for "safety" in Baghdad. That's the way it is, not the way anduril and his neocon thinktank idols would like it to be. Does anduril read the columns of Robert Fisk? I suspect not. He avoids such unpleasant stuff, just as he has avoided seeing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.

In closing I can’t resist again quoting my favorite passage from anduril’s eight-point document, because it is so (sadly) hilarious:

(anduril) Many analysts are quick to point out that the Islamic militants have come flying out of the woodwork in Iraq but few have realized that this means they are not in the United States attacking civilians.

Interesting logic, a model of anduril's thinking, I guess. Obviously it means if we breed anti-American insurgents around the world, our country will become safer and safer.

[Johann]

Yes indeed, lots of peace to be had over there in Iraq.

On anduril's weblog he has comments from two "gentlemen" who say audacious things like "I hope the Iraqi people remind their children what their freedom cost". Shocking.

Here's some more great commentary from my man Raoul Duke (HST), a man way ahead of his times:

Welcome to the 4th Reich.
The first horrible years of our new Century....

We are coming to a big fork in the road for this country, another ominous polarization between right and wrong, another political mandate to decide "which side are you on"...

The American Century was over in January 2001. They were Punctual, as the Fascist mentality cannot survive without brute Punctuality- never be late! For fear of being guilty of "DEVIANT BEHAVIOR", and being brought "within The System". Bang! Slam! Bend over...Seig Heil! Who is god? The Boss is God-and you're not...Hey Rube, you are NOTHING! YOU ARE GUILTY!

We've seen Weird Times in this country before, but the year 2000 is beginning to look SUPER wierd. This time, there really is nobody flying the plane....We are living in dangerously weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they're dazed and confused.
DOOM IS THE OPERATIVE ETHIC.

Look around you. There is an eerie sense of Panic in the air, a silent FEAR and UNCERTAINTY that comes with once-reliable faiths and truths and solid institutions that are no longer safe to believe in. Guaranteed fear and loathing. Abandon all hope...

Onward Christian Soldiers. Mahalo. Fuck those people. I've had a bellyful of those vengeful Christian bastards and their Rules for righteous punishment. Those fruit-bags have had their way for 2,000 years and look what we have to show for it: Boom Boom. Sorry honey, but that money you had in the bank just went bye-bye. Our horse failed to finish. Earnings weren't sufficient. You will suffer huge tax penalties on top of everything else.

We are in trouble over here, Simon. The deal is going down all over our once-proud U.S.A. We are down to our last cannonball.
Stand back! Those Pentagon swine are frantic to kick some ass, and many job opportunities are opening up in the Armaments, Surveillance and New Age Security industries.

There is always a bull market for vengeance and violence in America. I would never claim to speak for my whole nation, Simon: I am not the Voice of America- but neither am i a machine-gun Nazi warmonger. I have been feverishly writing down my various fears and worries and profoundly angst-ridden visions about our immediate future.

There is a Presidential Election, right on schedule, but somehow there is no President. A new Congress is elected, like always, but somehow there is no Congress at all- not as we know it, anyway, and whatever passes for Congress will be as helpless and weak as Whoever has to pass for the "New President"





And you don't believe we're on the Eve of Destruction.....

[Johann]

I just re-read this whole thread again and I think it's pretty damn awesome. This thread may be the best one I created.

It's amazing to read how tunnel-visioned and ignorant anduril was, saying that my claims were "preposterous".
Not so preposterous 5 years later, is it?
I was bang-on the money. And it reinforces my notion that gut feelings are way more important than the spin that comes from governments.

I was against the Iraq war long before it was fashionable to do so, and I was smeared here for doing just that.
But there's something to be said for sticking to your guns and knowing in your heart what is right.

I want to thank Michael Moore for inspiring this heated thread with his brilliant Palm D'Or winning film.
It produced edifying debate and shined a huge light on hypocrisy and ignorance.

2 weeks and no more George W. Bush.
I just wish it was his funeral and not merely him moving out of the White House.
History will show him to be the worst thing for THE WORLD, not America.

Thanks for nothing Dubya, you fucking moron!

[Johann]

Postscript:


I said in this thread 8 years ago: If Stephen Harper became Prime Minister we'd be no different than Bush. And we aren't.
Canada has a Republican President.
Who's fucking our country up.
EXACTLY LIKE GEORGE W. BUSH FUCKED UP THE USA.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't know much about Canada -- the last time I actually went there was when I was in college -- and one of the times it was to hear Glenn Gould play at the Stratford Festival, so you can guess how long ago it was. But I look on your country as a refuge, as a more civilized place. Maybe all in all the USA is a more exciting and interesting place to be, or some parts of it are, but Canada has advantages, such as a functioning health care system, less crime, fewer guns, less paranoia, more tolerance and a more stable economy not as wrecked by the global financial crisis. This Canadian guy who lived in California for a while mentioned some of these things and also thought your beef and your fruits and vegetables taste better, and you are more aware of the rest of the world, while Americans are obsessed with their own country and wear blinders about most of the rest of the world

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...0170109AATurUC

I hope Harper isn't going to take those things away from you. But if he makes Canada Bush-like, then you'll get the paranoia, and maybe more financial corruption that will undermine the economy.

[Johann]

Thanks Chris.
Our health care system is functioning, but it's deteriorating. All Provincial Premiers just said yesterday in a joint media call in Victoria that what the Harper government has done is unprecendented.
They said that the government's refusal to negotiate with them is beyond baffling. It makes no sense whatsoever.
They are giving the health care sector 1% to operate on.
Officially it's 6% for 20% of the whole enchilada, which, when you do the actual math, is 1% of their operating costs.
It's astounding. They won't even entertain a MEETING.
Harper sure ISN'T doing it the way Paul Martin did it.
When he took office the feds gave 50%. Then it was whittled down to 30%
Then 20%.
And now it's at 6%.
It's mind blowing.
Harper has eroded our health care system. His contempt for Canada cannot even be calculated. It's astronomical how large his contempt is.

This country rocks. Everyone with a brain knows it. And it makes me puke to see it being thrown into an incinerator by such a fuckhead goof.
Just like many Americans are sickened over what Bush did.
He was handed a surplus too, just like Harper was, and what is the National debt in the USA now?
Right. In the trillions.
We're in the billions, but Harper is getting us there, inch by corrupt inch.