ANOTHER GOOD MOORE GUT-SHOT (DON'T LOSE YOUR HAND!) This New Republic piece makes a few good points about Fahrenheit 9/11 and it's creator. The first is that the movie, particularly in its second half in which it focuses on the suffering of a mother whose son has just died in Iraq, attempts to conflate two essentially unrelated questions. The first is Was the war in Iraq (and the war in Afghanistan) justified? The second is Is the United States military constituted in a just way? These are fundamentally different questions, and a no to the latter doesn't necessarily mean a no to the former. (Beg to differ? Consider: World War II was fought by a segregated military, and the Union army in the Civil War was raised in part by a draft that the rich could buy out of. Were either unjust wars as a result?)
The second point the author makes is that Moore doesn't seek to explore the question of why America's army is comprised so heavily of the poor and lower middle class; he simply pretends to explore it while using it to score polemical points (see Columbine, Bowling for, minutes one through 120). Of course, if he did, he might discover that the blame for the lopsidedness of military service in this country lies in no small part with the people who make up his own fan-base: upper-middle and upper-class professionals who perpetuate a culture that insists that military service is simply beneath the status of themselves and their children. When I tried to join the army a little over a year ago, I was shocked to discover how many people were shocked that I was even considering it. The idea that, in an age when our country was at war, a war that had reached our home soil, I would consider taking a few years off between college and law school seemed incomprehensible to them. Surely I was joking, or at least had some ulterior motive (political ambition being the most frequently theorized - I confess it's true: I long to someday be a small-town alderman). It's not only congressmen whose sons aren't bleeding in Iraq; how many of Moore's friends have children in the military? I mean his current social circle on the Upper West Side, not the good people of Flint who get dusted off every time our cinematic Pantagruel needs to seem authentic. There's a solution to the class imbalance in the military: it's for all those upper-middle class Michael Moore fans who're upset about class imbalance in the military to get off their collective ass and enlist in the damn military. C'mon, folks: think globally, act locally!
The third point is that the respectable Left is increasingly coming to view Moore through the "he may be a sonofabitch, but he's our sonofabitch" lens. You see it in this Slate review too. The basic point seems to be "Sure, his movies are filled with lies, distortions and looney conspiracy theories, but he raises some important issues for discussion along with the dreck, and to the extent that anyone is actually taken in by his nonsense they'll be driven to vote against Bush, which is a good thing. And anyway, the Right has its own lie-propagating attack machine. It's important we can respond in kind." Of course, the last 20-odd years have suggested that having "our sonofabitch" maybe isn't that great an idea after all. (see Hussein, Saddam; Noriega, Manuel; Marcos, Ferdinand; et al) As Mark Steyn put it, "He may be our sonofabitch, but he's a sonofabitch."
Of course, I haven't seen the movie. Many others have. Are my non-impressed impressions on point at all?
The second point the author makes is that Moore doesn't seek to explore the question of why America's army is comprised so heavily of the poor and lower middle class; he simply pretends to explore it while using it to score polemical points (see Columbine, Bowling for, minutes one through 120). Of course, if he did, he might discover that the blame for the lopsidedness of military service in this country lies in no small part with the people who make up his own fan-base: upper-middle and upper-class professionals who perpetuate a culture that insists that military service is simply beneath the status of themselves and their children. When I tried to join the army a little over a year ago, I was shocked to discover how many people were shocked that I was even considering it. The idea that, in an age when our country was at war, a war that had reached our home soil, I would consider taking a few years off between college and law school seemed incomprehensible to them. Surely I was joking, or at least had some ulterior motive (political ambition being the most frequently theorized - I confess it's true: I long to someday be a small-town alderman). It's not only congressmen whose sons aren't bleeding in Iraq; how many of Moore's friends have children in the military? I mean his current social circle on the Upper West Side, not the good people of Flint who get dusted off every time our cinematic Pantagruel needs to seem authentic. There's a solution to the class imbalance in the military: it's for all those upper-middle class Michael Moore fans who're upset about class imbalance in the military to get off their collective ass and enlist in the damn military. C'mon, folks: think globally, act locally!
The third point is that the respectable Left is increasingly coming to view Moore through the "he may be a sonofabitch, but he's our sonofabitch" lens. You see it in this Slate review too. The basic point seems to be "Sure, his movies are filled with lies, distortions and looney conspiracy theories, but he raises some important issues for discussion along with the dreck, and to the extent that anyone is actually taken in by his nonsense they'll be driven to vote against Bush, which is a good thing. And anyway, the Right has its own lie-propagating attack machine. It's important we can respond in kind." Of course, the last 20-odd years have suggested that having "our sonofabitch" maybe isn't that great an idea after all. (see Hussein, Saddam; Noriega, Manuel; Marcos, Ferdinand; et al) As Mark Steyn put it, "He may be our sonofabitch, but he's a sonofabitch."
Of course, I haven't seen the movie. Many others have. Are my non-impressed impressions on point at all?
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