Unfondly Fahrenheit

“There’s a real story to be told about how Bush took a country to war on mostly bogus premisses”

Not just Bush. In Britain, we were told by Blair and his government that Saddam had WMD which could be used “within 45 minutes”: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2002/09/24/dossier.pdf

In June year ago, even after Bush had declared the war officially over on 1st May last year, Blair was still insisting his claims about the WMD in Iraq were correct:

“Speaking at the G8 summit in Evian, Mr Blair said he stood ‘100%’ by the evidence shown to the public about Iraq’s alleged weapons programmes.” – from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2955036.stm

There has been no apology.

Basically what Edward said. Moore is trying to reach people describable as “gut thinkers’ (m) or “intuitive” (f). The Republicans have been brilliant at getting the support of people who don’t normally pay close attention.

Democratic attempts to reach that fairly large demographic have been pitiful. Moore can do it.

I really do hear Democrats and liberals say “If I have to win that way, I don’t want to win at all”. If you want to find my hot button, saying that is of the many good ways to do it.

Republicans accuse Democrats of “having contempt for the American people”. That’s because Democrats rail at “stupid” voters (or condescend to them), instead of learning to talk the dialect of “stupidity”. The Republicans do not respect these voters more, but they play them better.

Comments in support of the movie: Yes, it’s a pack of lies, but it’s a pack of lies in support of goals I favor, therefore it’s a good thing.

High standards, guys. Please don’t bother preaching to me about your lofty moral standards.

I haven’t watched it yet, and I don’t particularly like Moore’s style either, but a charge about Bush-Saudi relations being presented in the same sloppy way as Iraq and Al Qaeda’s… It may be so in the film, from what I heard and seen of Moore previously, I guess it’s true – but after all it’s just a film, not a whole book or journalistic report on the matter. There’s tons out there on those relations and sadly they’re much more real and involve much more disturbing stuff (because it’s real) than any possible Al Qaeda link to Iraq.

To me, it’s amazing that so many are so willing to turn a blind eye to that, it’s just something I can’t understand, how anyone could possibly take that with a “so what”. It’s about the whole way 9/11 was (not) dealt with. So even if it’s all put forth in terms of innuendos to conspiracy theories, well, better than just pretending the giant obvious questions aren’t there. It may encourage people to go and find out a bit more about the whole matter, or even just question something.

Then again, there’s people who met the torture cases with a so-what, but that category would be irredeemable to questioning anyway.

A common assumption seems to be that the qualities of good propaganda and cogent argumentation are inversely proportional, that to be an effective film F9/11 had to be fairly sloppy and below the belt. I don’t see why this is true though. My reaction, after also seeing it last night, was similar to Henry’s – like the curate’s egg, parts of it were excellent. The rest just did not gel into a coherent narrative beyond the idea that Bush is a pretty fucked up president. But if it had been more focused on the flimsiness of the case for war, and on providing evidence for the real reasons for the war, it could have been utterly devastating – as both propaganda and critique.

Henry’s main criticisim (also Drum’s) is quite common–to paraphrase, there were conspiracy theories but not much real evidence to back them up — but I just don’t get it. When you’ve got footage of Bush addressing the “Haves and the “Have Mores” and calling them his “base”, do you really need more evidence of Bush as a “tool of big business”?

As far as the connections to Saudi oil interests and the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), I have two points. First, I will assume that the “facts” of the connections are well established and uncontested., despite what Henry wrote: “… Fahrenheit 9/11 uses innuendo to connect Bush and the Saudis in just the same way that Bush himself used innuendo to connect Iraq and al Qaeda.” The analogy is completely absurd. The connections between the Bush family and the Saudis are not based upon innuendo, but solid fact. It’s as if you watched the Shiny Happy People sequence and responded “Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”

I believe Moore’s major point is not to imply something specific (e.g. the Saudis funded Bin Laden, and Bush went light on the Saudis because they butter his toast), but rather that the Bush/Saudi connections and the Bush/MIC (military industrial complex) connections raise numerous relevant questions that are rarely asked in the mainstream media and have never been answered.

Take these as examples:

1) Does the cozy relationship prevent Bush from saying “Prince Bandar, tear down those madrassas!”? (I write symbolically, of course).

2) Does the Bush/oil business connection prevent him from formulating an adequate energy policy based upon enhanced conservation and investment in alternative technologies, a policy that will reduce our dependence upon oil of any variety?

3) Is it a good idea for our civilian leaders to be so intimately connected with the MIC (Carlyle, Halliburton, etc.)? A related question asks whether it’s a good idea to outsource so many functions previously covered by the military, and how can this not provide a financial incentive for war?

The fact that these questions are not answered (and POLITICALLY cannot be answered, at least by the targets of the questions) doesn’t make asking them either irrelevant or sloppy and careless. In an era when we evaluate presidential candidates based upon whether they sighed or looked at their watch during a debate or shouted oddly during an election night rally, it seems odd to excoriate Michael Moore for asking these questions.

Apologies to the pathological apologist above, who raised this issue above in a much more coherent way.

bq. It’s as if you watched the Shiny Happy People sequence and responded “Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”

That was one of the cheap shots that didn’t work for me. It’s a dumb photo trick. Pick any President over the last thirty years, and you are going to find lots of photographs of him shaking hands with dubious rulers. Goes with the job.

bq. I believe Moore’s major point is not to imply something specific (e.g. the Saudis funded Bin Laden, and Bush went light on the Saudis because they butter his toast), but rather that the Bush/Saudi connections and the Bush/MIC (military industrial complex) connections raise numerous relevant questions that are rarely asked in the mainstream media and have never been answered.

It would have been nice then if he had actually raised some of those questions. I didn’t hear him doing more than casting vaguely-worded innuendos.

At the end of the day, Moore is Glenn Reynolds in a Teamsters shirt. If you think that’s a good and wonderful thing, then there’s not much that I’m going to be able to say that can convince you otherwise.

Henry,

I strenuously disagree. While I have no doubt that you can pick any current occupant of the White House shaking hands with dubious rulers, I would expect that photos of former Presidents doing business–let alone shaking hands–with dubious rulers are much harder to come by.

Which former Presidents do you expect to find serially hobnobbing with Arab Oil Sheiks? Clinton – nope. Reagan – nope. Carter – nope. Ford, nope. Nixon – nope. Johnson – nope…. Can you name even one example of a former President making millions and millions of dollars (not just shaking hands) in association with dubious kleptocratic leaders? I think it’s cheap to call this segment a cheap shot.

I also expect that ties between dubious rulers and the sons of Vice Presidents are rare (though here I’m probably on slightly less solid ground). Do you think Moore was wrong to raise the question about James Bath?

If you think that Clinton wasn’t heavily in bed with the Saudis, think again.

A friendly attitude toward Saudi Arabia has been an important attribute in Washington for a good while now. Bush didn’t start it- he just makes it worse.

The US has been “in bed” with the Saudi government for 30 years. If anything, GWBush has the weakest relationship now since all the US troops have left in the last 2 years. Bombing of Iraq from Saudi was done under Clinton. This particular piece of innuendo leads to a dead-end.

Pathological, my questions have to do specifically with the Saudi connection, which you argue is indisputable and which Moore spends a good half hour of the film on. Two of your three examples have nothing to do with the Saudis. (Considering that Bush and his dad were both oilmen, and that his VP and Secretary of Commerce were oilmen, I don’t think we need to call on the Saudi connection to explain why Bush has not been a big advocate for alternative energy.) And while it’s true that Bush has not called on Bandar to tear down the madrassas, somehow I think that omission pales in comparison to the innumerable examples I cite above of Bush acting in direct contradiction to Saudi interests. Moore explicitly says that $1.4 billion buys a lot of love. Setting aside the fact that the $1.4 billion figure is a complete canard, where is the love that it bought? The best you can do is that it kept Bush from calling for the dismantling of religious schools (something, incidentally, no other U.S. president has ever called for)? That is remarkably weak given the web of innuendo and suggestion that Moore spends thirty minutes weaving.

Two insightful documentaries, Control Room about Al-Jazeera, and Corporation about just what it says, are playing to small art house audiences in the US this week while Moore’s muddled flailing about is being hailed by the left-wing version of Passion of the Christ boosters as the Revelation of the Ages. What my country needs is not the Win At Any Cost mentality of Bush and Moore but a return to civil discourse and rational thinking in the political arena. But in a country where many still can’t accept that the Earth is more than 4000 years old, or maintain attention for more than five minutes on anything that doesn’t “entertain” them, any hope for that seems doomed.

Given the indiscriminate mass arrests in both Afghanistan and Iraq of those who “might” have been terrorists, it has always struck me as odd that virtually no time was spent interrogating the Bin Laden family members and other Saudis who were allowed to leave the U. S. in September of 2001. The aggregate of facts that Moore offers lead only to the question that he asks in the film. Whose interests was Bush looking after? It is not an unfair question, given the administration’s subsequent actions, also detailed in the film: that few forces were committed to Afghanistan, that the search for Bin Laden himself was dropped, that no particular effort at all was spent looking at the obvious Saudi connection to al-Qaeda, not to mention that, as many more people than Craig Unger have pointed out, there have been no connections of Iraq with the events of 9/11. Again, this is not innuendo. It was reported in the mainstream press that Saudi Arabia refused to make various Saudi nationals available to the U.S. and there seems to have been no protest on the part of the administration; that there was a diffidence on the part of the Saudis in providing information to U.S. authorities in a number of areas related to tracking al-Qaeda. Although I would say, having seen the film, that it isn’t my cup of tea, I cannot fault Michael Moore for raising questions that have been particularly ignored for no other reason that I can see than that it’s bad form to question men of wealth. The only innuendo is that Bush may have had conflicting loyalties – you don’t question your friends – but is that any way to run a country?

The whole movie would have made a lot more sense if Moore had explained what Saudi Arabia is like. Something along the lines of:

Saudi Arabia is a theocratic kingdom with deep internal divisions. The Bush family is inextricably allied with the quasi-secular faction headed by Prince Abdullah. Unfortunately, these great friends of ours are considered “the near enemy” by Islamic fundamentalists within the Saudi royal family and al Qaeda. The US has made itself into the “far enemy” in the minds of many Saudi princes and Osama Bin Laden by allying itself with the “near enemy.”

These are bare and uncontested facts. Everything else is gravy, as far as Moore’s thesis goes. He goes on to prove that Bush is in financial conflict of interest, via his established ties to the Saudi oil industry. What Moore doesn’t prove is a causal connection between Bush’s Saudi ties and 9/11. These known conflicts of interest are relevant to our understanding of American foreign policy in general, and the events of 9/11 in particular.

If I remember correctly, PBS Frontline has done more than a couple good documentaries on the Iraq War and Bush administration.

Tho “biting, savage, funny” isn’t really their style.

So, how does “completely incoherent” sit with “not incompatible, exactly”? Are they not incompatible, exactly, or are they completely incoherent?

“Two insightful documentaries, Control Room about Al-Jazeera, and Corporation about just what it says, are playing to small art house audiences in the US this week while Moore’s muddled flailing about is being hailed by the left-wing version of Passion of the Christ boosters as the Revelation of the Ages.”

Aa a matter of fact, Michael Moore is quite prominently present in The Corporation. Which, by the way, didn’t seem to me to be the insightful film you say it is. Contrarily, it could function as more evidence that film isn’t really the medium for thoughtful reasoning.

Interviewee: “A corporation is like a shark!” Inspired director, in the editing room: “Give me stock footage of a very mean-looking white shark!”

Moore’s movie is not for us, the intellectual elite. As such, it isn’t trying to prove any specific factual assertion a-la forensics club.

Moore’s movie is for the blue-collar, lower and lower-middle class folks in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, etc. It’s the same message as Roger & Me.

It’s all about the (really quite well focused from this view) parade of imagery exploding the popular myth of Bush as an ordinary Texas kind of guy and showing him instead as a heriditary member of an elite whose lives are nothing like the rest of ours.

He wants to show that this group of which Bush is a part doesn’t play by the same rules as the rest of us, and they don’t want us to find out. That their public personas are a sham. That’s the point of all the pre-live camera preening, make-up, etc. It’s not just cheap shots. It’s about showing that what a carefully put on face they choose to show us, while off-camera they’re puffing cigars with Saudi princes.

He doesn’t even have to prove that Bush lied about the war to get his message across. The lies aren’t important. Most of his real target thinks invading Iraq was a good idea even if Bush did lie. Moore merely has to demonstrate, and has demonstrated, that whatever other motives may exist, the Bush elite never stops looking out for itself and its cronies, and will happily take opportunities to do so on the backs of the working class and poor who make up the military. He showed convincingly that if they’re not utterly indifferent to the suffering and death they’ve caused to the invisible poor people, they’re at least willing to get over it for the right price.

That’s a powerful message for its’ target audience; the very same audience the Bush campaign is also trying very hard to target with messages about what a “liberal Taxachusetts elitist” John Kerry is compared to Bush’s “family values”.

Moore is a crock. He *might* help the Democrats this year; but he’s also a potential landmine, IMO. He resorts to Nazi-esque propaganda techniques to lull the unthinking into his point of view–using half-truths, self-referentially incongruent theories, and outright misrepresentations of the statements of his opponents. If his movie ever gets associated with Kerry’s campaign in the public’s mind, and the depths of his deceptive techniques and lack of professionalism are fully exposed, he could sink Kerry. The current political trend to let spin be god not withstanding, if Michael Moore is helping the Democrats, it’s a sad day for democracy.

On a related note, this link is to the best analysis I’ve seen of F9/11 so far (By Christopher Hitchens):
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/

bradh: “Moore’s movie is for the blue-collar, lower and lower-middle class folks in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, etc. ”

… and in Cannes ;)

I guess you’re right about the main target, but you’ve got to take that award into account, as well as the worldwide popularity. Clearly his stuff can reach across diverse audiences.

squeakyrat: “Fuck thoughtful reasoning — just crush the right.”

Exactly. Fight fire with fire.

There’s a second movie precisely on the runup to war via 9/11, called “Hijacking Catastrophe”, which can IIRC be ordered online for $20. It’s pretty good, in my opinion. Talking heads documentary with TV/document footage, largely.