Movie Review: Fahrenheit 9/11
Most of us can agree that Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 is a blistering indictment of the Bush Administration. But is it factual? Is that the most important question of all to ask? Or should we be asking ourselves why it takes a movie at our local Cineplex to get us to have a meaningful discussion about our foreign policy? Love him or hate him, Moore has an insight into American action that is worth contemplating.
As with most forms of political discourse common to today’s American culture, Fahrenheit 9/11 is presented within an entertainment forum. This is dangerous at a number of levels - not least of which is that it assumes issue-oriented complexities can be easily reduced to fit the normal two-hour allotment for today’s traditional movie. It goes without saying that what is designed to make an important political point doing so at your local Cineplex may overlook important questions and facts in the interest of being entertaining.
One of the primary enemies to informed and sincere political and social dialogue is the tendency for today’s pursuit of meaningful information to be relegated to forums similar in construct to sitcoms, movies and novellas. Such devices leave little room for exploring nuances or encouraging meaningful debate over important questions. All of this having been said, it is wise to remember that Moore views his work less as a documentary and more as political satire - with such a distinction in mind, it becomes easier to appreciate this movie. Moore reverts to the same ambiguities and generalizations that people such as Limbaugh and Hannity do when it serves their purposes. These over-simplifications are typically defended on the basis of the program’s “entertainment” value, missing the wider implications to a society constantly over-stimulated and under-informed.
The recent death of former President Reagan was a rare moment of reflection for Americans. For many, he represents a leader who inspired and motivated us - who gave us hope and who cast a vision of a future firmly set in the realities of the present. That is not a trivial gift to the American people - it is something we could use more of from the office of President. Where reflections on his passing become thorny are when his policies begin to be investigated and debated: was he the man who “defeated communism”, or was he on watch when a decrepit system toiling under the weight of its own inadequacies predictably failed? Were his economic policies fundamentally sound, or do the debts they accrued pose a risk to the nation’s long term economic health? Did he willingly engage in regional skirmishes around the world in a morally justifiable way or were some of his administration’s actions in places like Latin America wrong? Perhaps no more thorny question comes up than the man himself - was he the visionary leader many believe, or was he a mouthpiece? Some have claimed that his previous life as a spokesman for General Electric provided him with the experience, coupled with his acting career, to be the perfect spokesman for whatever cause he ultimately embraced. Are the memories we have of him rooted in deep conviction over his policies or deep inspiration over his person?
I would contend that for most Americans - even those who strongly supported President Reagan - that their support for him is based primarily on his ability to inspire - to remind them of what was good about their own lives, about their family, and about their country; all meaningful things! However, Reagan being a superb communicator and Reagan being a superb visionary with a grasp of the world are two very different things. My reason for making such a distinction is this: without an appreciation that our recent Presidents have no more been the authors of their own policies than they have been authors of their own speeches, we can not grasp some of what is most meaningful in Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 movie.
Early into the movie, Moore shows President Bush in Florida with a group of elementary school children as the attacks in New York begin. After he is told of the attacks Bush appears lost. He sits for seven minutes looking stunned; it is difficult to fight the sense that Bush has no idea what to do with this information. Is Moore’s point that Bush is in the middle of a situation outside of his ability to understand how to respond without someone telling him what to do? Probably so. Is that the most important point? I think not. The most important point in this moment of the movie is to realize that we, as Americans, are being shown the implications to electing based on charm, charisma, or more typically preservation of some sacred issue we are unwilling to waver on - not on intelligence, experience, worldview or credentials.
Let’s start at the beginning of September 11th: what was our President doing flying Air Force One to Florida to read a book to a bunch of elementary children? Is such an activity wrong? Certainly not. Has it become more and more the nature of the job we expect our President to do? The sad answer is yes. How fitting that on the morning of the worst domestic terrorist attack the United States has yet experienced, our President was visiting an elementary school to read to school children; actually he wasn’t reading the book - he was sitting as someone else read it. The consummate public relations move turned into the consummate image of the political reality we, as Americans, have allowed the office of President to be cheapened to. It is we who are guilty of President Bush’s ignorance - he represents the typical American perspective that what goes on outside the world is of little importance until it affects me. That morning, it affected us all, and we now live in a world where a poorly informed electorate, led by a poorly informed President is marching down a path strewn with fear, panic, loss of civil liberties and the use of military force to assuage our desire for revenge.
As Moore weaves his web he roles out a laundry list of associations (think a more compressed version of six degrees of separation) between the Bush family and the bin Laden family. Most people are going to miss the point Moore is making within this part of the movie: they will assume Moore is attempting to show a conspiracy - that somehow Bush was a part of allowing 9/11 to take place. I do not hold to such an opinion - the hate bin Laden has for America does not need a conspiracy to be actualized. The greater point that Moore is making is that money protects money! Money is the only consistent motivator and explanation to our political system and our social motives. Why were many members of the bin Laden family allowed to leave the US while other planes were grounded by the FAA after 9/11? Because connected individuals within the Saudi Arabian embassy could make such a request and have it granted from within the highest echelons of the United States government. Do not fall for the conspiracy talk - it cheapens the point and serves only to ensure that meaningful questions are not asked. The point is that people with money will almost always do a favor for other people with money. Why? In the hopes of gaining another favor in the future - perhaps at a similar moment of need.
This point drives a secondary issue: President Bush’s past and the relationships reflected within his Cabinet need to be more fully investigated. Corruption is amok. I am no conspiracy nut, but the graft going on in today’s administration through Halliburton, the relationships between the Bush Administration and Enron, and the historical web woven between the oil industry and administration officials is inappropriate. Those who wanted President Clinton and then First Lady Hillary Clinton strung up for Travelgate should be ashamed of the paucity of their desire for purity from within the White House. The dishonesty, mixed motives and dubious payback of old debts is ripe in today’s White House. Again - the point is not some vast conspiracy; it is that our system now is only about the acquisition of money and dissemination of power. Moore’s point through this diatribe? Money protects money.
I have had to deeply wrestle with the realization that many voters like President Bush because he “reminds them of themselves.” If such a memory includes being born wealthy, attending Harvard and having your father’s friends set you up on several occasions with jobs inconsistent with your experience, credentials or capabilities, then yes, President Bush should “remind you” of yourself. How ironic that most of the people who have articulated this emotion to me are typically working class folk who love their country, love to Bar-B-Q and have, for some reason, assumed that a President who also Bar-B-Q’s is “just like them.” Neither President Bush nor Senator Kerry are the “common man” - which is fine; we do not need, nor should we want, a leader who understands things and has the same credentials as the average man. It would do Americans well to go back to the teachings of Aristotle on political leadership. Aristotle taught that the community should determine who was best qualified to serve and then require of the person in question to serve. The modern day fixation on having a leader who is just like us is unhealthy and no-doubt the expected reality when the media only chooses to provide abbreviated forums engineered to provide limited political discourse.
Two final points deserve to be heard during Moore’s movie: that the response to 9/11 relative to domestic legislation smells ominously of Orwellian intentions, and that the Iraqi war is an immoral, poorly thought out and highly suspicious action. Americans are increasingly waking up to the realization that our responses to 9/11 bordered on paranoia. Most of us now roll our eyes when a new terror warning comes out - or when the terror alert level is raised. Orwell suggested that this is a something understood by government planners, something that is reflected in systems that are designed to control the populace. Having recently returned from Romania, it would not surprise me at all to share these ideas and questions with my Romanian friends and have them respond affirmatively that such mechanisms are intentional. But Americans have a different social, political and historical experience. The result of our experience is that we are not willing to believe in central planning - in some arbitrary group of people who control our society through carefully laid out legislation and policies - such an admission would mean we are not truly in control. For most of us today, “control” and “freedom” are the same thing. Where one should be tactile or pragmatic and the other philosophical (a condition of the mind and spirit), we have made both concepts equal - ruining our ability to discern what is designed to allow us the opportunity to maximize our consumption versus what is designed to set us free to be individuals.
The final half-hour of Moore’s movie focuses in on the Iraqi war. For those opposed to the war, the images he portrays are angering. It maddens people like me to see Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell publicly stating prior to the events of 9/11 but during the Bush Administration, that Hussein is a contained threat. To have the events of 9/11 used to accomplish the goal of removing Hussein from power is disingenuous at the least and intentionally manipulative at the worst. To see Richard Clark say that he was told directly to find a way to link Hussein and 9/11 is an atrocity. At some point those who support President Bush have to rationalize such inconsistencies; typically this is done when that final emotional wall is breached and they become honest - they are for Iraq because they still hurt and are afraid in the aftermath of 9/11. Fear can be used as a motivation for many things - few of them constructive or well-intentioned. Those who find themselves in such a position would do well to reflect on how far their fear will allow them to be manipulated.
Americans will, at some point in the not so distant future, be held accountable by the world for allowing deeply disingenuous leaders to manipulate our emotions in order to accomplish their own misguided intentions. It may take further loss of our global dominance or another more serious and catastrophic calamity on our shores to set in motion the soul searching we are all in need of. To the extent that a two hour movie by Michael Moore gets people motivated to get involved and to become educated on the facts, I am for it. To the extent that it also cheapens the debate by making fun of President Bush and the employment of vagaries unworthy of those who have truth on their side, I am not in favor of it. The movie is worth seeing, but it must not be your primary source of information relative to what position you have on the Bush Administration and its policies.
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4 Responses to “Movie Review: Fahrenheit 9/11”
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“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
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July 8th, 2004 at 7:43 pm
Ben, My head is spinning- again! A very interesting piece. Question - is it your opinion that Reagan was just pushing on the wall at the right time? Just an aside. You always pose more questions than my brain can handle. So, just what should be my primary source of information about Bush & his adminstration & it’s policies ? I know where you are going to say not to get it! Moore’s vitriol is going to get in the way of his message for some. Very thought provoking . Mom
July 9th, 2004 at 7:01 am
I have found it interesting recently that in most situations where I can have an open dialogue with others about Bush, your question (”how can I get good information”) almost always is the note we end on. Obviously, I believe reading from multiple perspectives is necessary. The answer to the question requires, I would suggest three things: first, avoid obviously political exchanges of information. If politicians or political idealogues are our source of information, we are beginning on the wrong foot - little to no openness to being wrong or other perspectives can be afforded. More than any other reason, that is why I stay away from Limbaugh, Hannity, Moore or Franken. Second, be a discrete consumer of information in general. I find forums like “Meet the Press” are good tools for hearing for yourself how people answer the difficult questions. I would contend people could actually spend less time educating themselves if they were to focus on fewer (perhaps less convenient) media outlets than what we now do. Last, we have to make an effort to hear and educate ourselves on both sides of an issue. Most of us gravitate to forums, books, magazines and entertainment that makes us comfortable - that we already agree with. I struggle with this like anyone else (David Limbaugh’s book on how religion is being persecuted in America is an upcoming example of me needing to stretch myself into the other corner!).
October 5th, 2005 at 4:56 am
If he never made fun of people, including Presidents, Michael Moore would not be the much-watched and loved/hated filmmaker he is today. Period!
October 5th, 2005 at 4:57 am
A critic of the right wing can NEVER be vitriolic enough for ME!!!!