Fahrenheit 9/11 Turns Up the Heat
Revolutionary Worker #1245, July 4, 2004,
posted at http://rwor.org
The RW received the following correspondence.
I went to Fahrenheit 9/11with a bunch of people who knew each
other from work--and there was some real excitement in the air. People
had been looking forward to this, talking about it, wondering what they
would see, and more: hoping that this film would really help change the
direction of things. And when we got to the theater, that feeling was
in the long lines waiting to get in. It was a real event.
As I sat down, the guy next to me said, "glad to meet you, glad to
see all of us, here, together, on this thing."
"This thing" is exposing the government--and the Bush crew that runs
it. Exposing the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, the stealing of the 2000
election, the worship of the rich, the corruption in high places, and
the lies-- above all the LIES, that have now been used to
conquer countries, send young men and women to kill and die, and
cynically keep millions of people in a manipulated "state of
alert."
Fahrenheit 9/11 is hilarious, and savage, and (despite the howls of
rightwing attack dogs) overwhelmingly factual. People are sick--to
death!--of being muzzled, stifled and gagged. And in this onscreen rush
of images and sound, there is a feeling that the cork has been popped.
It's like an opening shot to this heated, politicized, dangerous and
oh-so-crucial summer.
If you saw Bowling for Columbine you know Michael Moore's
scattergun film-making technique--the video snips, the ambush
interviews with powerful people, the heart-to-heart with working people
in Flint, the sudden comic animation, and the raw satirical
juxtaposition of words and images--it is all here. And it is refreshing
to see.
Here you get Bush, Rumsfeld, Powell and Cheney swearing (over and
over) that there are Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq--and that they
know just where they are. And then you get the ugly war and
occupation.
You get soldiers describing how ugly rock anthems are piped through
their tank's CD player, hyping them to "let the muthafukka burn." And
then you get the young confused faces of soldiers saying later that
they just can't understand why they are still in Iraq, and why the
people hate them so bitterly. And then it cuts to GIs at Christmas,
kicking in doors, terrifying families in the dark, dragging off the
young men, and then gathering around an officer dressed as Santa
Claus.
In one unforgettable sequence, Moore introduces us to Lila
Lipscomb--a woman who worked her way from poverty into a stable middle
class job, who urged her son to join the army, and patriotically raised
the flag over her home every morning. And then we see her, with her
family, describing how her 26-year-old son died in Iraq, and she reads
his last letter that says: "What's wrong with Bush? He got us out here
for nothing whatsoever. I'm so furious right now, Mama." And she talks
about how she once thought anti-war protesters were insulting her and
her soldier-son, and all those who "sacrificed for their country"--and
then you see her intense agony and anger as she describes her
realization that her son, and so many others, have died in an ugly war
that has no lofty purpose.
It is a painful, revealing journey. And it is all the more powerful
because, in America today, such stories of war- time loss are rarely
being told. In fact, even photographing the arrival of soldiers'
caskets is officially forbidden.
Michael Moore has his own peculiar slant on things--I think he misses the whole
strategic reason the U.S. conquered Iraq. He views the "corporate" role very
narrowly as profit-making and corruption (and really doesn't "get" how controlling
the Persian Gulf strategically
gives empire builders a grip on the whole world.) He hints like the Bush family
may be traitors to the U.S.--because of the closeness and lucrativeness of their
intimate ties to Saudi princes--when in reality these Bushes
are the emperors, and the Saudi princes (in reality and ultimately) are
subordinate and dependent on the empire.
The Revolutionary Worker (http://rwor.org/resistance/) has
been going deeply from a revolutionary communist perspective into the
underlying motives and operations of these war makers and their whole
planet-threatening agenda. And, after seeing Fahrenheit 9/11,
millions of people are going to be debating and looking for the truth
and looking for answers to big questions, and they need to connect with
the kind of scientific and thoroughly radical worldview that has some
real answers.
Here we were, laughing together--here were OUTRAGEOUS government
actions onscreen, being called out in ways that they are far too rarely
called out. Here together millions are affirming (and reminding each
other and perhaps understanding for the first time) that this was not
"intelligence failure" but cynical, deliberate LIES and MANIPULATION
that led to an unjust war of conquest in Iraq. Here is a rare moment in
the popular culture where someone shows how this so-called "War on
Terrorism" is being dishonestly manipulated, channeled, and hyped--to
serve a calculated and sinister agenda.
But, at the same time, I had a deep sense of where I think this conversation
has to go--how we all have to grapple much more deeply with the scope
of these crimes and deceits --to
uncover the true nature of these rulers, their motives, their goals, and to
get at the reality of how deep the rot goes, and how serious this moment really
is.
Bush is, of course, the frontman for these operations--but there is
a larger agenda (a global campaign and master plan of war and
repression) that has been steamrollering all through Official U.S.
Politics (including Democratic Party politics) and stampeding over much
of the world. It has the kind of ruthlessness and momentum that only an
imperialist superpower can build up.
People came to this movie excited because they haven't been
able to see their deepest gut sentiments and political feelings
expressed on the official political canvas of this society. It is
considered extreme, unpatriotic, even lunatic to hate the "war-time
president" this much. It is considered "outside the scope of
permittable debate."
Moore supports Kerry in these elections (and he supported General Wesley Clark
in the primaries)--but the elephant sitting in a lot of living rooms is this:
While millions of people want to oppose the Iraq War and all the domestic Ashcroftian
madness, that is not what John Kerry and his campaign represents. The
promise of the Democratic ticket
(like the Bush White House) is to pursue "the mission" in Iraq to victory.
To stop this aggressive global offensive, we will all have to be
part of a great upheaval--something that challenges, defies and derails
the designs of a determined empire.
Fahrenheit 9/11 was getting at something very deep when it
showed then-Vice President Al Gore personally gaveling down Black
congresspeople who were protesting the disenfranchisement of Black
voters in Florida. You got a glimmer there of how the Democratic Party
betrays the hopes of people over and over, and how it serves the system
not the people (even if it means rallying behind the illegitimate
presidency of Bush or rubberstamping the fascist Patriot Act without
even reading it).
There is a raging offensive underway to discredit and suppress this
movie Fahrenheit 9/11. A rightwing attack group, "Citizens
United," has demanded that the federal government forbid TV commercials
advertising Moore's movie! Another rightwing front group, "Move America
Forward," is trying to pressure movie-house chains to stop screening
the movie, claiming that Moore is traitorously "profiting in his
attacks on America and our military." Some all-too-familiar rightwing
zillionaires have financed anti-Moore "documentaries" and organized a
"film festival" in Texas where their anti-Moore infomercials would get
publicity. And it is not just the rightwing forces who are out
to discredit the movie--the very mainstream media and news have been
saying (a thousand ways) that Moore is biased and untrustworthy, and
that this movie is probably only interesting to committed
"Bush-haters."
In short, Moore is accused of being a liar, a propagandist, a
traitor and character assassin. And these accusations are made by the
rightwing thugs of official politics who (day after day) fill the
airwaves and Fox News with their sleezy lies and reactionary
ranting.
There is political conflict breaking out at close quarters in the
USA--and powerful, high-placed forces truly think they should be able
to shout down or legally suppress voices that speak out against
them.
Michael Moore has found his own creative way to say "NO!" to
this Bush agenda, to its juggernaut of war and repression. He has said
it with his satirical, impish and provocateurish riffs--from his own,
social democratic point of view.
And it comes at this moment, when
millions of people need to find powerful ways to say NO!--to fight
to de-legitimize this government crew and their project, to deny their vicious
crusade a manufactured appearance of popular mandate, to reach those millions
that they are seeking to befuddle and corrupt, to rip away the ridiculous lies
that these imperialist warmakers are the "good guys" and their cause is just.
Let's take it higher. Let's dig in deeper. Let's press forward to
create a river of human resistance of more than a million in those
streets of NYC as the Republicans try to proclaim Bush as a "liberator
of Iraq," a "wartime defender of the American people," and a champion
of worldwide "freedom and democracy." And let's pursue the debate over
what we must do--now, and in the larger sense with the future of our
world and society itself.
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker
Online
http://rwor.org
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