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barking_iguanaBecause I don't want to be defending Bush.
The Shrub is our worst President since the Civil-War era. And the need to recover what we can of our relations with the rest of the world, as well as to halt the erosion of democratic values, make this the most important election since at least 1940. And Wilkie might have done just fine, anyway.
But I've seen Moore's work. Some of it, anyway. Roger and Me and several episodes of his TV show. He's very good at showing things that are very wrong. He shows why it matters in a way that seems polemical in outline, but does it through examples and at a pace that makes it seem hit home for viewers.
The problem is that he's not very discerning about which 'problems' to highlight. Some of them are just bad people doing ordinary, non-bad things, and Moore succeeds in making those ordinary things seem like part of the problem.
It's not that his victims don't deserve what they get. And F911 will probably get to some people, with it's emotional jolt, that nothing I could say ever would -- even if I had as much time with each of them as Moore does. So in many ways, Moore does very good work.
But my credibility comes from not saying -- or defending -- things which I don't believe to be true and fair. If I went with a group to see F911, I just know that I'd end up in discussion afterward where folks were talking about how great some sequences were, and it would be left to me to point out that if there were an incumbent whom we all liked, (s)he's be doing that (whatever) particular thing, too, and we'd consider it justified.
And I just can't (so far) put myself in the position to have to do that. It's not that I won't defend people even worse than Shrub. I will argue the coherence and internal consistency of Genghis Khan and the subject of Godwin's Law. But that's no how I'd want to spend my energy in a city on which the hordes were descending in the 12th Century, or in Czechoslovakia in 1938.
I don't believe Shrub himself would be the direct agent of catastrophes on the scale of those above, but I do believe there is a small but non-trivial chance of such a catastrophe happening in the next 25 years, and that Shrub is unwittingly (for he has little wit) doing everything he can to make one come about.
So Moore will do his work, and I make what little impact I can doing mine. But to mix the two would only interfere with both (albeit on a scale that Moore would never notice).
The Shrub is our worst President since the Civil-War era. And the need to recover what we can of our relations with the rest of the world, as well as to halt the erosion of democratic values, make this the most important election since at least 1940. And Wilkie might have done just fine, anyway.
But I've seen Moore's work. Some of it, anyway. Roger and Me and several episodes of his TV show. He's very good at showing things that are very wrong. He shows why it matters in a way that seems polemical in outline, but does it through examples and at a pace that makes it seem hit home for viewers.
The problem is that he's not very discerning about which 'problems' to highlight. Some of them are just bad people doing ordinary, non-bad things, and Moore succeeds in making those ordinary things seem like part of the problem.
It's not that his victims don't deserve what they get. And F911 will probably get to some people, with it's emotional jolt, that nothing I could say ever would -- even if I had as much time with each of them as Moore does. So in many ways, Moore does very good work.
But my credibility comes from not saying -- or defending -- things which I don't believe to be true and fair. If I went with a group to see F911, I just know that I'd end up in discussion afterward where folks were talking about how great some sequences were, and it would be left to me to point out that if there were an incumbent whom we all liked, (s)he's be doing that (whatever) particular thing, too, and we'd consider it justified.
And I just can't (so far) put myself in the position to have to do that. It's not that I won't defend people even worse than Shrub. I will argue the coherence and internal consistency of Genghis Khan and the subject of Godwin's Law. But that's no how I'd want to spend my energy in a city on which the hordes were descending in the 12th Century, or in Czechoslovakia in 1938.
I don't believe Shrub himself would be the direct agent of catastrophes on the scale of those above, but I do believe there is a small but non-trivial chance of such a catastrophe happening in the next 25 years, and that Shrub is unwittingly (for he has little wit) doing everything he can to make one come about.
So Moore will do his work, and I make what little impact I can doing mine. But to mix the two would only interfere with both (albeit on a scale that Moore would never notice).
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Fahrenheit 9/11
Date: 2004-07-08 08:00 pm (UTC)I think it's fulfilling to do that. I'm very critical and readily find fault in anything, whether I hate it or adore it. I won't even bother criticizing the film in that way, because it's not worth my effort. But go and see how Bush reacts to the news that the nation is under attack. He collapses; he is completely destroyed. No person so frail should have been allowed near the Oval Office, or should be allowed near it in the future.
The rest of the film is mostly padding.