Michael Moore's - "Fahrenheit 911" : A Beyond Left and Right Movie Review
Michael Moore is not
exactly my cup of tea. He is a liberal's liberal who fits almost perfectly
the stereotype lampooned by the likes of Rush Limbaugh. His appearance
and rhetoric convey the image of a Joe Sixpack populist when the reality
is that of a multi-millionaire member of the literati and cognoscenti,
a adherent of Phil Donahue-esque limo-progressivism. In his
films, speeches and interviews, Moore frequently comes across
as a sanctimonious, know-it-all, a "fat, unshaven, bully" as
right-wing pundit and Watergate luminary G. Gordon Liddy
describes him.
Much of Moore's work
is little more than a regurgitation of
standard liberal cliches. The anti-firearms zealotry expressed
in "Bowling for Columbine" is indicative of the phoniness of
his pretended populism. And the title of one of his books
invokes the silly white-male-bashing that the modern left has
transformed into a sacrament. Even those aspects of his work
that I tend to admire, for example, his attacks on corporate
corruption and tyranny, are never accompanied by any proposed
remedies of a creative or insightful sort. Instead, Moore
always falls back on the left-wing insistence that the welfare
and regulatory state can never be expansive, expensive,
intrusive or totalitarian enough. Yet, for having produced
"Fahrenheit 911", I can forgive a lot of ideological or
personal weaknesses on Moore's part.
Critics have characterized the film as an orgy of Bush-bashing
and indeed it is. And rightfully so. Contrary to some reports,
Moore builds his case against Bush and his regime rather
meticulously. He has dug up and included a good deal of
obscure, frequently hilarious and often quite revealing
footage of Bush and cronies in their more unguarded moments,
demonstrating themselves to be the motley assortment of rogues
and incompetents that they are. In the months leading up to
the 9-11 tragedy, one administration official after another is
shown denying any capability for so-called "weapons of mass
destruction" on the part of Saddam. A high-ranking FBI
official is shown testifying before Congress with regards to
John Ashcroft's contemptuous dismissal of the concerns brought
to him by the agency on the matter of terrorism prior to 9-11.
Terrorism experts are interviewed about the seeming near-total
indifference of the new Bush administration in the early
months of 2001, even after intelligence reports revealed
al-Qaida was planning a hijacking operation within the US.
Moore provides heavy documentation of the long-standing
personal and commercial relationships between the Bush and bin
Laden families. The evacuation of members of the bin Laden
family and other Saudi elites from the US immediately after
9-11, when all commerical air flights had been grounded, is
also discussed. The incompetence displayed by the
administration in the buildup to the war in Afganistan raises
importance questions about the actual motives behind that war.
If the goal was to retaliate against al-Qaida and eliminate
bin Laen, then why was bin Laden given a two-month head start
before any "hot pursuit" got underway? Would not an almost
immediate Special Forces attack have been more appropriate?
Military experts discuss the relatively small invasion force
sent into Afghanistan as opposed to the much more massive
force sent into Iraq. Was the purpose of the Afghan invasion
to eliminate al-Qaida and the Taliban (whose dignitaries are
shown visiting oil elites in Texas during Bush's time as
governor there-one of the turban wearing barbarians comments
on the inablility of American men to control their women) or
to make Afghanistan safe for the construction of a
long-desired oil pipeline?
Similar questions are raised about the role in the Iraq war of
the oil crony-capitalists who surround Bush. The oil industry
backgrounds of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice are well-known.
Amusing footage is included of a less gray-headed Donald
Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in 1983, at the
height of America's backing of Saddam's war against Iran. Also
shown are scenes from gatherings of corporate executives where
the economic opportunities brought about by the Iraq war are
elaborated upon. The scenes of these high-falutin' war
profiteers marveling over the prospective loot are in sharp
contrast with the scenes depicting the many, many victims of
Bush's wrong-headed war. It is on these matters that Moore is
at his best.
Rank and file enlisted personnel in Iraq are shown to be real
world human beings, neither malicious killers nor bravehearted
warriors nobly defending the Fatherland. Instead, they are
depicted as regular Joes and Janets who signed up for military
service because it was the only job available in many of their
cases. To his credit, Moore is genuinely bi-racial in his
handling of the subject of American troops. Many of the G.I.'s
interviewed are authentic, white working-class people, that
element so long forgotten by the left in its fascination with
caricatured Official Minorities. Yet, the impact of
imperialism and empire on real-world minority communities is
also shown in dramatic detail. A group of black high school
students in Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan are shown
talking about the reasons so many in their community are
attracted to military life. Virtually all of them have a
family member in Iraq.
Moore also focuses a bit on the dishonesty and cynicism
involved in military recruitment efforts. His cameras follow
two young Marine recruiters to a shopping mall where they are
shown approaching one young person after another, all of them
ordinary, everyday working class kids, whom they attempt to
entice into military life with outrageous promises concerning
job opportunities, vocational training, eduational benefits,
enlistment bonuses, travel adventures, opportunities to
develop one's skills at sports and music, one lie or
exaggerated claim after another. Much of the latter part of
the film focuses on a military family in Flint, a bi-racial
family with a black father and white mother, the latter a
counselor to the unemployed who proudly flies a US flag
outside her home and talks about her family's military
history. Her son was killed in Iraq and she is shown reading
his last letter home where Bush is described as "that fool"
who got the country into an unnecessary war.
For all the damage done to American families and communities
by Bush and his band of sociopaths, the impact on the people
of Iraq is predictably much, much worse. Graphic footage is
included of destroyed homes and marketplaces, charred, mangled
and mutilated bodies, horribly injured children, grieving
survivors and raids on the homes of terrified civilians by
American soldiers. Enraged Iraqis are shown promising bloody
vengeance on the Americans. Bush regime rhetoric about
"liberation" is shown to be the sick joke that it is. And
despite Moore's obvious partisanship, the Democratic Congress
and liberal media are not let off the hook either. Leading
Democrats like Tom Daschle and media icons like Peter Jennings
and Dan Rather are shown kowtowing to the emperor and the
imperial ambitions of the state. On the question of pro-war
bias in the media, Rather remarks, "When my country goes to
war, I want to win!". A reporter from Fox News goes even
further saying, "Damn right, I'm biased!".
"Fahrenheit 9-11" includes many of the predictable weaknesses
one would expect from a film made by a left-liberal. In
examining the motives behind the Iraq War, Moore focuses
almost exclusively on the role of the Bush family and their
relationship to Big Oil, armaments manufacturers and other
components of the military-industrial complex. This type of
focus, while including much of merit in its own right, also
indicates the limits of the conventional left-wing orientation
towards economic determinism and laying the world's events at
the feet of "the capitalists". It would have been wonderful if
Moore had devoted some scant attention to the other, many
fascinating factors concerning the Bush regime's Middle East
policies.
Israel merits not even a single mention in this film. Any
competent political scientist will recognize that U.S. Middle
East policy cannot be fully understood outside the context of
the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. Moore could have
at least included some reference to the potential benefits to
Israel likely to accompany the demise of Iraq or the Israel
Firsters who occupy many of the upper echelons of the Bush
administration. Bush's parroting, in his own ineloquent way,
of the rhetoric of Ariel Sharon on Iraq and on the Palestinian
question might have made for some interesting and even comical
footage. An examination of the hold of the Israeli lobby over
Congress might have shed some light on Congress' acquiescence
over the matter of the Iraq war. Bush's former press
secretary, Ari Fleishcher, appears several times in the film,
yet his Israeli citizenship is never revealed.
Likewise, there is not a single reference to the role of
neoconservative or Straussian ideology in the shaping of the
Bush's administrations war plans. A brief segment, say ninety
seconds, of Shadia Drury explaining who the Zionazi Leo
Strauss actually was and the role played by his intellectual
disciples in the Bush regime might have proven quite
illuminating. Indeed, a particularly surreal scene in the film
involves footage of the Straussian neocon Paul Wolfowitz,
leading intellectual architect of the Iraq war, preparing for
a television appearance. He is shown licking his comb, trying
to keep his slicked-back hairstyle in order. With his beady
eyes, pointy nose and Dracula coif, he takes on an eerie,
vampirish appearance. Unfortunately, he also looks with
perfection the stereotype of the satanic Jew of medieval
fables. Professional Jew-haters could have a field day with
this.
One would think that a confirmed leftist like Michael Moore
would at least include some reference to Bush's theocratic
allies among the Christian Zionist movement, his major
grassroots support base. Indeed, Bush himself claims to be a
"born again", and it could have been quite interesting to
explore the relationship between Bush's alliance with the
"Left Behind" crowd and his treatment of Palestine and Iraq.
Yet there is no mention of any of this in the film. Of course,
it would be just as silly to attribute Bush's aggression in
Iraq to "the Jews" or "the rapturists" as it is to lay all of
this at the door of "the capitalists", "Big Oil" or "the
military-industrial complex". Such simplistic forms of
analysis utterly fail to understand the nature of the modern
state. And this brings us to the principle flaw in all of
Michael Moore's work, whether "Fahrenheit 9-11", his other
films or his books.
Michael Moore is a statist. He may not like particular
individuals within the state at a particular time, like George
W. Bush, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld. He may not like
particular actions of the state, like going to war with Iraq.
But matters such as these are only peripheral issues when
Michael Moore's entire world view is examined. Ultimately,
Moore shares the same fundamental set of presumptions as Bush,
Cheney or Wolfowitz. The state is good. The state is an
indispensable human institution. The state is a necessary
means to a vital end. The state can be a source of human
uplifting if only the right people are in control of it, if
only it has enough resources at its disposal, if only the
people grant it its proper reverence. Yet, these presumptions
are fundamentally flawed.
As Franz Oppenheimer demonstrated, the state is founded upon
conquest and plunder. Any other claims on behalf of the state
are simple matters of evasion and obfuscation. Whether the
state plunders Iraq on behalf of George W. Bush's warfare
state or whether the state plunders the product of the labor
of working people on behalf of Michael Moore's beloved welfare
state, the basic truth taught by Randolph Bourne, that "war is
the health of the state", remains a truism. The purpose of the
state is to monopolize territory, expand its power, and
exploit its subjects on behalf of an artificially privileged
ruling class. Currently, the American state seeks to expand
its imperial power throughout the Middle East, to monopolize
that territory, to exploit its subjects (whether they be
Americans or Iraqis or Afghanis or, de facto, Palestinians),
and to enrich, empower and privilege its ruling class, that
baleful coalition of economic, religious, ethnic and
ideological interests currently in control of the U.S. regime.
Michael Moore could use a good dose of Public Choice
economics.
Moore's obvious political purpose in making this film is to
un-elect Bush come November. But what can be expected from a
Kerry administration? Kerry is a product of the same elitist
fraternity as Bush, Yale's mysterious Skull and Bones society.
At best, a Kerry regime would be a collection of recycled
Clintonites, perhaps even including the Dragon Lady, Madaleine
Albright, whose suggestion that subjecting hundreds of
thousands of Iraqi children to horrible deaths from disease
and malnutrition via sanctions and blockades was just
wonderful so long as it kept Saddam toeing the line might even
qualify her for a job working for Bush should Colin Powell
decide to retire.
Obviously, it is the people and not the politicians who must
put an end to the insanity going on in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Palestine and, perhaps soon enough, Iran, Syria, Lebanon,
Saudi Arabia, and, what the hell, maybe even Columbia, North
Korea or China. If "global democracy" or some other piety is
the battle cry of our overlords, then our only rightful
response can be: "Hell, no, we won't go, we won't fight for
N.W.O.!!"
Keith Preston is an American writer of great importance for American Revolutionary Vanguard, another site the ever-growing "Smash The System" webring.
To view the trailer for this outstanding and heartily recommended movie, visit : The Official "Fahrenheit 911" site .
