Fahrenheit
9\11 Exposes Bankruptcy of U.S. Imperialism
Filmmaker Michael Moore’s
latest documentary begins by asking Americans ‘Was it all a dream?’ as footage
of the 2000 U.S. Presidential elections plays on.The film closes with a close-up of George W. Bush, mangling an American folk saying
which cautions people not to let themselves be made fools of twice.
For two hours in between, he presents a scathing critique
of the Bush administration, with a particular emphasis on the so-called War on
Terror.His aim in making this
documentary is clear: he wants mainstream America to see this film and understand some of the crimes this
administration has committed.He wants
Americans who have been raised to be proud of their country to ask themselves
some questions about what their country is doing in the world.
Moore makes this clear in several scenes in the movie as well
as in interviews he has given subsequent to its release; he believes his film
was necessary because the news media in the U.S. has failed to present even the flimsiest pretext of
impartiality as they have lined up as cheerleaders behind the War on Terror.
In one memorable interview on CBS, when asked by an
interviewer whether his film is propaganda, Moore replies that there are many who think the CBS nightly
news is propaganda.Instantly
uncomfortable, the interview tries to steer the conservation in a different
direction, but Moore keeps pressing her:why did the media simply report various lies by the Bush administration about
the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?She, stammering,
has no answers and can only try to get out of the situation as quickly as
possible.
Moore asks the
same questions in the film; he provides footage that the corporate media in the
U.S. has simply pretended doesn’t exist: shots of the destruction caused by the
Americans’ “shock and awe” campaign over Baghdad; interviews with U.S. soldiers
who either question why they are in Iraq or are so indoctrinated that they
cannot view the Iraqis as human beings.
He also lets ordinary people speak for themselves and
juxtaposes people and places to draw the viewer towards inevitable conclusions
about the nature of the American ruling class.A working class mother talks about the pain of loosing her son who died
for a cause she increasingly questions; her grief is mirrored in a scene filmed
in Baghdad of a woman surveying the wreckage of her bombed-out home
and weeping for her lost child.
Two U.S. marine recruiters target poor, inner-city youth to
sign-up as cannon fodder while a group of young black men talk about the lack
of jobs and hope they face in their community.Moore brings a young military officer who has decided he will
not serve in Iraq to confront the members of Congress who send the children
of the poor off to die while their own children live in privilege.
Moore has come in for his fair share of criticism since the
movie was released, including some blistering attacks written by a few
left-wing critics.They claim Moore is merely preaching to the converted and condemn the movie
for propping up the U.S. Democratic Party.They also dismiss Moore’s
film as not being revolutionary and therefore, not having real merit.Their criticisms don’t amount to much,
though.The first charge is simply silly
- if the millions of Americans who have seen the movie were all part of the
anti-imperialist movement in the U.S., the American ruling class would be trembling at the
knees.Only a few could claim Moore has
any illusions about the Democratic Party, as he underlines several times their
moral bankruptcy in supporting the invasion of Iraq, the suppression of civil
liberties in the U.S. and abroad and even their complicity in assisting Bush
with his coup following the 2000 elections.To dismiss the movie as not really revolutionary is to entirely miss the
significance of Moore’s
undertaking.Fahrenheit 9\11 is the
first mainstream openly subversive cultural work produced in the U.S. in decades – since the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, in
fact.It is easy to criticize from the
sidelines; it is much harder, as Moore does, to make a contribution.