Eric Margolis on Fahrenheit 9/11 (Not another wack ass review)

[King Tech Quadafi]

Degrees of Fahrenheit

The movie should have focused on how the neocons conned America

By Eric Margolis -- Contributing Foreign Editor


MICHAEL MOORE'S blockbuster hit, Fahrenheit 9/11, may not be an epochal political film like Battleship Potempkin or The Battle of Algiers, but it certainly ranks as the most exciting and searing American political movie since the superb, eerily prophetic Wag the Dog.

In fact, Wag the Dog and Fahrenheit 9/11 make perfect bookends, encompassing the fraud, dishonesty and Orwellian manipulation of George W. Bush's failed presidency. With dazzling speed, elan, and razor-sharp editing, Moore keeps turning over Washington rocks, exposing a squirming, slithering underside of deceit and illicit dealings that will outrage thoughtful, educated viewers.

However, core southern and midwestern supporters of George W., who study world affairs through Chuck Norris movies, Rush Limbaugh's eructations and the Old Testament, are unlikely to rush to see Fahrenheit 9/11, which their pastors will warn them is the latest manifestation of "liberal" evil to menace America.
 

No one will ever accuse the angry Moore of subtlety or finesse. He attacks George W. and his White House cronies with a cinematographic shovel. Moore's Bush comes out looking stupid, inert and fuddled.

This column has always had a low opinion of the president's intellect, but it's hard to believe that Bush, who, after all, won the presidency, is quite as dense as the film portrays him. Taking film clips and parts of speeches out of context, as Gov. Howard Dean can sadly attest, can make anyone look rabid or stupid.

Nor do I buy Moore's contention that Bush is merely the tool of evil big business and the Iraq war a money grab by Halliburton and the sinister Carlyle Group. Life in Washington is far more complex than this simplistic view.

Big business certainly takes advantage of every opportunity and sways governments -- Republican or Democrat. But the second Iraq war was not started by Enron's Ken Lay or the board at Chevron. Moore is rehashing old, anti-capitalist agitprop from the Democratic party's liberal left.

By contrast, Moore did a smashing job in capturing the zeitgeist of the Bush administration's fear-mongering that terrorized unworldly Americans into believing they were in mortal peril, and only the president could save them.

Moore clearly smells the whiffs of proto-fascist behaviour coming from the White House. I wish he'd made the disturbing contrast between 9/11, and the ensuing anti-democratic Patriot Act, and the Reichstag burning of 1933 that led to the Emergency and Enabling Acts ending Germany's civil liberties.

Unfortunately Moore's sweeping attack on the self-proclaimed "war president" totally ignores the 900-pound gorilla at the tea party: The neoconservative conspiracy to push America into the disastrous Iraq war.

Phony Iraq crisis

The entire phony Iraq crisis -- weapons of mass destruction, germ labs, dire threats to America -- was all concocted by neocons as part of their long-term campaign to push America into a Mideast war to destroy Israel's enemies. That, and the lust to control oil, were the two driving forces behind the war.

Moore's spotlight should have pointed at the administration's neocon cabal, led by VP Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Richard Perle and their media allies, who fed false information to the White House and the public. Alas, the only reference to this cabal was a truly nauseating little clip of Wolfowitz licking his comb.

I was also disappointed Moore didn't spend more time pounding the U.S. national media. He took only a few shots at the big TV networks for parroting administration war propaganda.

The neocon conspiracy and its manipulation of the U.S. media is the most shocking story of the Iraq war.

Instead Moore allows the final third of Fahrenheit 9/11 to get bogged down in maudlin personal stories from Flint, Mich., instead of keeping up the first part's furious pace and shocking revelations.

The film is heavy-handed and occasionally unfair. But a powerful counterbalance to all the propaganda shamefully force-fed to the American public by the national media was overdue and desperately needed.

Until recently Americans have heard only one side of the story, which, we are discovering, was a tapestry of lies worthy of the Nazis' Dr. Goebbels.

Kudos to Moore for shining a bright light into the propaganda darkness

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Said it before, say it again. Margolis is King.

[Maradona]

Great read. This man is 100% correct in everything he wrote.

[Don Rizzle]

yea i agree its a good review

[RXL]

It's a fair review of the movie.

[infinite59]

That was an excellent review.  I don't know if Moore is fully aware of Isreal's role in all of this.  He didn't mention how the United States media is owned and controlled by Jews, and that many of these "commitees" in America are front groups for the advancement of zionist agenda's, for example, when you watch CNN and they have an "expert" from such and such group like "American and Middle East Public Relations" commitee come on, that's really a Zoinist commitee going by another name, to put themselves in a position where they can dictate policy.

[King Tech Quadafi]

Yeah you got love these foundations and think tanks that all advance Israel.

Middle East Forum lol

Then they have some Benovitz or Yakovich come on talkinga bout the war on terror

[eS El Duque]

good read

[dexter]

Great film

[Ras Kass' Toothpick]

Eric Margolis writes for the Toronto Sun, right?  His name sounds familiar.

BTW, The Sun >The Star

[King Tech Quadafi]

Oh no you got it twisted.

Yes Margolis writes for the Toronto Sun, but the Sun itself is a right wing conservative trash mag. The entire paper is garbage, yet for some reason they have Margolis writing for them. The Star shiiiits on the Sun when it comes to news. The Sun has the best Sports section in the country though.

Star> Globe and Mail > Sun > National Post

[Ras Kass' Toothpick]

The reason I read The Sun is because I can't read The Star, it's too much of a pain in the ass.  You read an article on the cover then it tells you to continue on A9 then you have to flip back, start another article, go to A13, and so on, it's a big fucking maze.  The pages are too big too, you need a big table in front of you to read the paper properly and not mess up the folds.  The format is horrible, The Sun's is much better.

[King Tech Quadafi]

Oh of course. If you riding the Rocket, then the Suns the way to go. But when Tech got his coffee and smoke at work and an hour to fuck around, he lays that bad boy on the table, spreads it out and gets down to some reading.