Thoughts on Fahrenheit 9/11 and Michael Moore

A few days ago, I watched Fahrenheit 9/11. I'm sure as many of you are aware, the movie has been talked about a lot since before it was even released, with much of the discussion being about the bias of the movie and the credibility of its content.

Since there's plenty of articles and stories that cover the details of "what's true and what's not" in the movie, I'm gonna try to avoid repeating all those details here. Instead, I just want to write about my personal feelings and reaction after seeing the movie, and say how I feel about Michael Moore in a more general sense. If anyone is interested to read about the details, I'll try to list some links at the end for people to pursue on their own.

By the way, I don't think anything I'm about to say will "ruin" the movie for anyone, so go ahead and continue reading even if you haven't seen it. It might actually even benefit you whether or not you end up watching the movie.

As a whole, Fahrenheit 9/11 is pretty similar to the other Michael Moore movies I've seen ("Roger & Me" and "Bowling for Columbine"). He doesn't appear as much on screen as in the past, but still narrates throughout the movie. To support his points, he uses a combination of news clips, interviews with his chosen "experts", and of course, his own footage. Pretty standard, really.

As I watched the movie, the main problem I had was trying to figure out exactly what points he was making. A lot of the movie seemed to me like it was more about mudslinging and just trying to make people look bad than anything else. Actually, this was the main issue I had with Bowling for Columbine as well. A lot of information thrown around and discussed, but not much in the way of conclusive arguments.

Still, I think I was able to dig out a few main points regarding the movie:

1. George W. Bush stole the Presidency from Al Gore in the 2000 election.

2. Bush was such a terrible, negligent President during his first months in office, that he should be blamed for the September 11th attacks.

3. The Bush family knows the Bin Laden family well and protected them after 9/11.

4. The Bush family is also heavily influenced by the Saudi royals. This influence was the real reason behind both the campaign in Afghanistan as well as the war on Iraq.

5. The members of Congress who voted for going to war are mostly cowards, who don't have any of their own kids fighting, but are quick to exploit the lower-class in recruiting for military service.

Other than that, like I mentioned, it seemed like the rest of the movie had little purpose, other than making people look bad. For example, one of the intro segments was simply showing President Bush and some of his administration in off-camera scenes. Little or no dialogue, just random clips of them getting their makeup touched up, combing their hair, adjusting their collars, etc. This goes on for at least a few minutes straight, and I guess by showing these scenes, it's supposed to prove to all the viewers that our country's leaders are sloppy or something. Which is useful knowledge to us in what way, I have no clue. It also makes me wonder if Michael Moore has ever seen clips of himself, on camera.

As far as the points he makes in the movie, they would be valuable, if there was more truth or relevant basis to them. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the ideas he discusses are either highly exaggerated, twisted, or simply false. Again, there are plenty of articles written elsewhere that describe in detail the ways that Michael Moore misleads or flat out lies to his viewers, so I won't go over all of them here. I do, however, highly encourage people to do their own searching and try to figure out for themselves what's true and what's not.

For me personally, after reading all the stuff I've read about the tricks and lies in Fahrenheit 9/11, I really was very disturbed about the whole thing. There are those who believe that it's important to watch this movie, just to see "both sides", and I had that opinion myself, before this week. But right now, I honestly think that the movie is such trash, actually worse than trash, that we would all be better off if it were never made. And I'm not telling people that they shouldn't see it, but I am saying that even if you do decide to see it, I believe you are highly unlikely to gain anything useful or worthwhile out of it. So be warned.

If you know anything about Michael Moore, you would know that he has an extremely liberal agenda. So liberal, that he considers many of the most liberal Democrats to be too conservative. Moore also does things like accuse the national media of pandering to Bush on the Iraq war in the movie, specifically naming guys like Peter Jennings and Dan Rather. For those of us who don't have selective memories, we may recall that Peter Jennings and many in ABC News were quite outspoken about opposing the war, while Dan Rather did his suck-up piece in his interview with "President" Saddam Hussein. Not that either of those facts make those guys liberal, but to accuse them of pandering to our President is ridiculous by any standard.

To gain even more perspective on Michael Moore, consider that in the days after the 9/11 attacks, Moore's first comments posted on his web site were to the effect that the terrorists should have targeted states which voted for Bush, not the ones that voted against him like NY, DC, or California (since then, he has removed those comments). And with regard to the current situation in Iraq, he actually supports the cause of the extremists who are attacking our soldiers: "The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy'. The are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow - and they will win."

I'm not listing these things because I neccessarily think it's wrong to have such extremely liberal views. But my point is that when someone who has such extreme beliefs makes a movie about President Bush, it's going to be exactly the one-sided presentation that Fahrenheit 9/11 is. A piece where only shots of civilians getting killed in war are shown, where the only "experts" that are interviewed are those who criticize the Bush administration. Where only the most unflattering images are put next to the President in a "guilt by association" kind of way.

Watching this movie, one would be led to believe that Iraq was such a happy place before the United States barged right in and ruined it all. That Saddam was a peaceful guy who just minded his own business and never wished any harm on Americans. Michael Moore would have you believe that during the war, we only killed civilians, and not enemy fighters. And the way he presented things, you'd think that George W. Bush was the one firing at and killing our soldiers, not the extremist insurgents or Saddam's militia. That only tiny, unknown countries participated in the coalition, as none of the major countries in the coalition like Italy, the UK, or Australia were mentioned.

With this in mind, if you want to get a truly balanced view of our government after watching this movie, you might actually have to watch a movie about Bush that was made by his mother or something, to see the other extreme. It would be a documentary filled with nothing but news clips of Bush at charity functions, interviews with Dick Cheney and Bush Sr. about how good his policies are, and then show plenty of scenes of him hugging his daughters or shaking hands with soldiers, all presented with triumphant music playing in the background. (I'm not saying this is what we all need, I'm saying that something that one-sided would be just as worthless as Fahrenheit 9/11).

And even then, I doubt that old Barbara would use any of the same kinds of shameless tactics that Moore employed. Some of the things Moore does, is comparable to those Conan O'Brien skits where he puts a face of a celebrity on the screen, cuts out the part with the mouth, and has someone else fill in the talking and moving lips. Or, when they do that thing on morning radio shows where they cut sound bites of people talking, and then pretend to interview them, using the sound bites as out of context as possible. Only in this case, it's not obvious as a joke, it's being passed off as the real thing.

So when I call this movie "worse than trash", I'm not really even joking. The movie is so one-sided, and has so little credibility, that it can really do a lot more harm than good to someone watching it. Let's say that someone offers you a drink, with the warning that if you drink it, it will fill your body with so many toxins that you will need to drink 10 cups of water just to flush it all out and get back to normal. Would you do it? Well, I think it's much the same situation with Michael Moore offering us Fahrenheit 9/11. Except, he provides absolutely no warning about the toxins contained within, and he's getting millions of people to pay for it, raking in the cash in the process.

Before I wrap up this discussion, I also want to talk a bit about Michael Moore the person. I once believed that he was a great citizen, out to help his fellow man in whatever way possible. But the more I see of him, and the more I learn about him, the more I start to despise him and what he stands for. When I watched him ambush Charlton Heston at his home in Bowling for Columbine, I was disgusted. There wasn't as much of that in Fahrenheit, but it's just irritating for me to see this guy who feels like the normal rules of common courtesy or human decency don't apply to him, and see how much he gets away with. And since he's the one editing the movie, he gets to make himself look good and make the other side look silly 100% of the time, even though he is always the instigator. Well, I guess the way I look at it is like the old saying goes: "When a dog bites a man, that's not news. When a man bites a dog, that's news." Since he seems to have no sense of self-respect, it's like a win-win situation. If by being a jackass he manages to incite a reaction, then he did his job. If he gets ignored, the other side looks like they're afraid of being held accountable. If they react in a completely civilized manner and make good arguments, all he has to do is edit it out of the movie and no one will be the wiser.

But what really disgusts me the most is how he manipulates and exploits normal people to suit his own needs in making his movies. Such as the way in he paraded around the sobbing, angry mother whose son was killed in Iraq. Does he truly care about the people themselves, about the tragedies and losses they experienced? If so, would he have used a clip of the soldier who lost both his arms, when the soldier himself strongly objected to being in the movie?

The sad thing is that just because a guy like Michael Moore has a camera and the capability to make a movie, we automatically give him credibility as if he were an expert or a trusted news reporter. In reality, he is a man who is concerned most about pushing his agenda on the rest of the country, and is not afraid to use whatever underhanded method he deems neccessary to achieve his objectives. He has not earned anybody's trust, that we should blindly subscribe to everything he has to say. In fact, by the dishonest ways in which he's presented the his material, he has done basically the opposite, such that we should be very careful and extra suspicious of anything he tries to feed us.

I don't think it's going too far for me to recommend that people avoid this movie, because of all the things I just talked about. However, I don't blame anyone out there who wants to see the movie. Just be very aware of the fact that this is far from a real "documentary". It is more of a 2 hour long negative political ad against George W. Bush than anything else. For that matter, I doubt that any real political ad would be able to get away with half the stuff that's in this movie, due to the lack of basis and truth behind the accusations.

In the end, if you really want to see "both sides", there are already plenty of sources available that have much higher credibility and don't distort the facts nearly as much as Michael Moore does. If you don't trust CNN or the NY Times, there's always C-Span, international news organizations, etc. There's really nothing in Fahrenheit 9/11 that is so "exclusive" that you can't find anywhere else, despite what he would like us to believe. Bottom line is, if you think you need Michael Moore in order to find out the whole story, then you are just not trying hard enough.

Furthermore, to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 while knowing that so much of its content is extremely questionable, without making an effort to follow up his claims and research their whole truth, is at best lazy, and what I would consider to be very, very irresponsible. I think it would be so sad for anyone in this country to simply watch this movie and use it as their sole basis to cast their vote. Unfortunately, I think that is exactly what is going to happen with a lot of people. And if you do that, you are effectively empowering Michael Moore to continue his dirty act elsewhere.

I hope anyone who read through this blog found it to be helpful in some way. As I said, I tried to avoid making it a point-by-point rebuttal to the movie, and provide more of a broader perspective, so it could make sense to both people who have and haven't seen the movie. Now, you may or may not agree with everything I said, which is fine. But if nothing else, I hope that reading this blog will at least encourage everyone out there to be more aware of what's going on in this country. And I really believe strongly that one would be better off not watching a movie like Fahrenheit 9/11 at all, than to watch it and accept everything in it without checking on the facts for themselves.

Before I go, I promised earlier to list some links to sites about the movie. Actually, there's a lot of stuff out there, if you just do a search in Google. So I think I will just list one site that stood out to me the most, which I found to be the most complete and done with the most fair approach:

http://davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm

It's written by a guy who is a "lifelong Democrat", who, like Moore, voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. He's not a Bush supporter and is critical of many of Bush's actions, but focuses this particular article on the "deceits" of Michael Moore's movie. This article is a good place to start, but I would also read other sources to get a better sense of the whole story.