US and the World

Just go see it!

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Moore's Public Service

I want to talk about Fahrenheit 9/11 - but too many people are doing that already - and this isn't something to talk about - it's something to experience. So if you haven't seen it yet - stop reading right now and just go see it. Nothing I say or anyone else says can come close the experience of it seeing it for yourself.

I did. And despite all I head read before hand about it, I was caught off guard. At points my anger rose to a barely constrained fever - and at other points tears streamed down my face until I had to remove my glasses.

I came away with deep admiration for Moore the film maker, Moore the man with genuinely common roots, and Moore the man who dares say what he means with an eloquence that is absolutely unmatched by any words. Call it propaganda, call it whatever you like - it is the art of communications at its best. Moore knows what he wants to say and he says it tremendously well. At last I see this incredibly powerful medium - the movie - being used for something more than the silly promotion of endless violence (which is not real violence at all - though you get that in Fahrenheit 9/11) and endless sex (which is not real love at all, but you can get that too in Fahrenheit 9/11.)

But I've already said far more than I intended to say. If you have seen it, read Krugman's column. I don't agree with all he says - he still apologises too much - but he does get at the core of the movie.

But don't read it first. Don't read anything first. Just go see the movie. And if you're interested in the art of communications, go see it twice - once to experience it, pure and simple - and then to understand it - to understand how and why it wrenches your guts and leaves you determined to do something more to stop this insanity.

One last note - I did not come away from it with a renewed hatred for Bush. Quite the contrary, I felt he was quite human in this movie - flawed, but all we humans are flawed - and able to see the world only from his own narrow perspective of extreme privledge. No, my anger, when it arose, was directed at the media - particularly the television news people who claim to be journalist. Over and over again I felt like grabing one of them by the lapels, looking them in the eyes, and saying:

"Goddamn you! Why didn't you show us this! Why didn't you show us the war as it really is instead of these ridiculously, scrubbed images? Why don't you show us our soldiers as they really are - in thier glory, their fears, their pain? Why didn't you show us what was really happening to the people of Iraq? And why didn't you show us the real George Bush? Damn you all- for Micahel Moore has shown us these things with images and sounds you all could have delivered, but didn't.

"And don't you dare whisper a word of condemnation of Moore. Just suck it up and go do better. You have the money, You have the tools. You have the platform. And you now have the example. Do better."

If they showed us war the way Michael Moore has done I'm convinced that the prediction of General Eisenhower - President Eisenhower - would come to pass. He said: "I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it."