Fahrenheit 9/11

I went to see this last night. Here's my letter to Michael. Also sent to mike@michaelmoore.com


"Dear Mike,

I went to see you movie last night. While it is quite obviously an overlong biased piece of mass media, it was also very entertaining. Quick cuts, out of context clips, misrepresentation of important information, everything that I come to expect from one of your films. This is not to say it wasn’t thought provoking, and interesting; it certainly was.

There were a couple of moments that really stuck in my craw all the same. Making pre-second-war Baghdad out to be some sort of innocent paradise reminiscent of a C.S Lewis novel was a little over the top. Yes, the reasons for going to war may have been flawed, but I don’t think life under Saddam was a paradise either. I think perhaps you may have been better served talking about the difference in unemployment weights pre and post war; the change in availability of food and water; the 10 years of crippling US sanctions post Iraq-1 (same thing happened in Europe with Germany c.1918 and look what happened there!!). Children running though the streets with kites pointlessly demeaned your argument.

Yes, when approval ratings were down the republicans went to war. Correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t the republicans only catching up in the war game? Roosevelt, Truman and LBJ were all Democrats. Nixon ended Vietnam. This doesn't make war right, but it is traditionally a democratic excerise(!)

Showing a clip of Bush “on holiday” while standing beside Tony Blair was kind of interesting too. Presumably this was meant for American audiences who mightn’t know who Blair is anyway. I am not sure it washed with the European audience. Again, this detracted (harmfully and for no reason) from your valid argument.

I really object to footage being used out of context to illustrate your point. People that could be bothered (in my opinion a tiny percentage) will find out that you are effectively lying to prove what is essentially a true point; surely this turns a strong argument into innuendo? Stop doing it. You have more then enough material to present a reasonable case without padding it with unrelated filler, giving detractors reasonable ammunition against you. Stop Stop Stop.

But it’s not all negative. The fact that you can make a documentary that fills a cinema in a suburb of Blanchardtown, Dublin, Ireland at 9.10 on a Tuesday evening is astonishing. That fact that it may make the audience rightly question both the government and (just as importantly) the filmmaker is also important. But surely it is extremely hypocritical of you to justify your anti-administration arguments by augmenting them with misdirection, exactly as you are accusing the incumbent American government of doing?

Oderint dum metuant,
C.”