As seen from Just Above Sunset

Friday, 25 June 2004

Topic: World View

Discussing what is real and what is not. Contrasting rhetoric. Differing levels of discourse.

In a week when the polls shifted and now, for the first time, more than half of Americans (fifty-four percent) do not think this war was worth the costs incurred, it's time for some thinking.

The cost was in lives (over eight hundred and fifty and counting, with perhaps eleven thousand grievously wounded), in billions of dollars, in the good will of much of world that was once on our side, and in the loss of much of our credibility (we did get some things wrong even if we meant well and still maintain these things - WMD and links to al-Qaeda -might have been so).

We have come to tolerate, if not embrace, the idea that some of us can be tagged and locked up without charges forever, for the greater good, on one man's word. We have abused, if not tortured and murdered, those who might, or might not, have information - to protect ourselves, in spite of international laws to which we have agreed. Many think this is necessary. And now (late afternoon, June 25) UN human rights investigators have demanded access to prisoners held by U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guant?namo Bay to check that international standards were being upheld. Don't they trust us?

No. They don't.

Are we the good guys? Of course.

Don't we stand for decency and the rule of law and fair play and all the rest? Of course.

What's the problem then?

Here are some voices.

Duke and Princeton: Robert O. Keohane is a professor of political science at Duke University. Anne-Marie Slaughter is dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and author of "A New World Order."

Bush's mistaken view of U.S. democracy
Robert O. Keohane and Anne-Marie Slaughter, The International Herald Tribune - Tuesday, June 22, 2004

... If the struggle against terrorism were to be carried out consistently with the institutional theory embedded in the U.S. Constitution, America's leaders would be well aware of the potential for abuse - even by decent patriots. They would have ensured not only that the Constitution was upheld at home, but that the more limited protections embodied in international law would have been conscientiously applied to people living under American occupation, or otherwise within U.S. control.

Behind the debate about the conduct of the war in Iraq, and the occupation, is a larger divide - between those Americans who believe that their unique virtues should permit them to act above the law, and those who believe that people in authority, necessarily imperfect, must be constrained by institutions and by law. Those who understand and believe in the theory of the American Constitution should reject the Bush administration's political theory of personal good and evil. We must continue to insist that the United States is a "government of laws and not of men."

Is that then the divide?

Maybe.

Dennis Prager is a prominent Jewish political commentator, widely ready on the right. He writes, mainly, on what is moral. He sees it another way.

There are many ways to philosophically divide Americans. Liberal-conservative and religious-secular are two obvious ways. But there is another, no less significant, division: Those who are ashamed of America for being hated and those who wear this hatred as a badge of honor.

... Either America is evil and hatred of it is merited, or America is a decent country and the haters are evil. The correct explanation is so obvious that only one who already hates America or who is simply morally confused would choose the first.

Reduce it to its absolutes - either our country here is totally evil, or we're not, and thus we must be totally good. Choose one or the other.

Decided yet? Of course.

We're right. You're wrong. Nayh, nayh!

And do we even have a grasp of the situation?

I suggested to my friend Ric Erickson at MetropoleParis in the items he contributed to Just Above Sunset he was wrong. His May Day and D-Day items (here and here) must have been reporting Paris protests that didn't actually happen, or didn't represent the real truth about public opinion. And that Bush visit to the UK last year? We were lied to. By CNN and everyone else. The British people all supported this war and had no problem with Tony. They agree with Bush there. Always have. Germany has always been behind us on the Iraq business. Always. France disagreed on some matters, but they always voted with us. Don't you remember?

You see, Bush stopped off in Ireland on his was to that NATO summit in Istanbul - and he cleared this all up. They asked him a question. He answered. Clear enough.

Bush Says Europe Supports U.S. on Iraq
Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press Writer - Thursday, June 24, 2004 9:00 PM PDST (Friday in Europe)

... Bush was asked whether he was satisfied with the level of political, economic and military support coming from European nations in Iraq.

"First of all, most of Europe supported the decision in Iraq. Really what you're talking about is France, isn't it? And they didn't agree with my decision. They did vote for the U.N. Security Council resolution. ... We just had a difference of opinion about whether, when you say something, you mean it."

If he says it, well, it must be true. And once again one is reminded of that famous line from Graucho Marx - "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes."

Bush is not delusional. He has proudly says he does not read the newspapers. He listens to what his staff tells him, because they are closer to actual events.

This just shows you cannot trust the media? You trust your leaders? Bush says most everyone WAS behind him and implies you can either trust him, or....

Ric shot back - "This is the leader of the funky Western World? I am wondering if this guy could be trusted to run a lemonade stand."

The next reaction was from my friend Joseph, also in France.

Dennis Prager.... Well at the risk of sounding anti-Semitic, that used to be a quite Jewish point of view, that is to say that the hatred of the world is proof of one's righteousness and god's favor. Presumably Muslims feel the same way... the other way to look at it is "perhaps if everyone hates me, it's because I'm doing something to deserve it." Perhaps it would be healthy to at least consider it.

The real problem, as I've said before, is that the moment we talk about countries as if they are groups of like-minded people who share common interests, we are in fantasyland. America is full of righteous people. It is also full of child-molesters.

And so Bush isn't totally disingenuous when he claims that Europe was with us. He's talking about Tony and Gerhardt, and even Jacques... because Bush doesn't read the papers, he doesn't often have a long heart-to-heart with the guy on the street, or rue or strasse or any other damn thing.

America is a good county. But some of its citizens, corporations and politicians have done evil things abroad. Is that such a contradiction? To deny this fundamental truth smacks of "My father- drunk or sober!"

Of course it does,

Well, Dennis Prager may not be worth discussing. We get the idea. Yes, slowly realizing that almost everyone hates you can lead to that "noble martyr" crap. An easy trap. Or it can lead to thoughtful self-evaluation. But no one likes being uncomfortable - and the latter can be uncomfortable. Why bother? Other than trying to stay connected to reality.

Which way your react - proud and defensive or doubtful and introspective - is probably a function of your personal psychological make-up - having to do with your childhood and the culture in which you were raised, and probably with congenital and heredity factors, or maybe even your diet. Who knows? One might argue that if you react to discovering you are widely hated, and always now distrusted, with scornful pride, and this hatred and distrust only proves, conclusively, that you are right and good - well, one could argue that's a form of psychotic behavior, or at the very least a developmental disorder. There's a disconnect somewhere.

But this not particularly Jewish. Bill O'Reilly is a practicing Catholic - although for all the practice he hasn't gotten it right yet. Franken mocks Bill. Various lefties say awful things about him - and he revels in it.

As for Bush and what he knows about the world, I should look up the articles from his trip to the Asian summit last year where various people explained to him there might be demonstrations and things could get hot. He was startled. He actually had not heard of any demonstrations there, or of the previous ones in Europe protesting his war and his policies. He was also completely unaware of any public opinion polls, anywhere, showing the overwhelming public opposition to any of that. Well, there were more than a few. No one had told him. Similarly, a few months ago I came across an item where someone explained to him how Chalabi had been convicted of bank fraud in Jordan and had been sentenced, in absentia, to twenty-two years in prison and could not set foot in Jordan, Syria or Switzerland ever again. They said Bush was pissed off and demanded why no one told him.
True? Who knows?

But it seems likely. He likes to keep his focus on his own agenda.

This of course involves ignoring specific, pesky things for your greater idealistic purposes - and that can be dangerous.

Putting it more bluntly, Bob Harris says this - "Understanding the bad guys is how you defeat them. Pretending you do, then attacking an entirely different enemy, while making up shit to justify it, is how you get your ass kicked."

Are we making things up?

Here's a more measured view from Leon Wieseltier:

I continue to support the war. But I have come to despise some of the people who are directing it. History, and we have been punished with a good deal of it on their watch, has not enlarged them. They are rigid and sectarian and righteous. Mentally, they do not live in the wide world. They do not see that the leadership of the most powerful country on earth demands a certain cosmopolitanism of mind. Main Street is all they wish to know. They think that French is funny. The more I observe Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, the more I discover the deep and unwitting similarities between unilateralism and isolationism. Like the isolationist, the unilateralist believes that the United States is alone in the world, and that there is honor in its aloneness. Like the isolationist, the unilateralist regards international alliances expediently, cynically. (When he finds himself frantically relying upon foreign countries and international institutions to assist him in difficult circumstances, like George W. Bush in postwar Iraq, he thinks no second thoughts about the blandishments of "foreign entanglements." He merely exploits the entanglements.) Like the isolationist, the unilateralist thinks that we can provide for ourselves everything that we need, everything that is precious.

It is no wonder that this administration has presided over a new flourishing of anti-Americanism. It accepts anti-Americanism as a compliment. It holds that all anti-Americanism is like all other anti-Americanism, and is in no way to be imputed to American behavior. In this way, the Bush administration has transformed anti-Americanism into one of the most urgent, and least addressed, problems facing American foreign policy.

... The rule of Saddam Hussein was uncommonly brutal. Its destruction represents a triumph of the idealistic strain in American foreign policy. Americans may be proud of having rid the world of such a horror. But the Bush administration's mistakes, many of them the consequences of its various theologies, have somewhat disgraced idealism, and this, too, is a disservice to America.

The course of the war in Iraq may persuade many Americans to revert to America's inward-looking habits. And the Bush administration is singularly ill-suited to teach those Americans about the glories of internationalism. Though the president and the vice president are acting with force internationally, they are not exactly internationalists. They are not national greatness conservatives, they are national smallness conservatives. But who are the national greatness liberals?

They're hiding, Leon. They're hiding.

That position is too dangerous. Adopt it and people will think you are unpatriotic.

And one should, obviously, not trade too many emails with Ric and Joseph in France.

Posted by Alan at 19:28 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Friday, 25 June 2004 19:48 PDT home

Thursday, 24 June 2004

Topic: Science

On Having a Positive Attitude - The argument that happy people are quite dangerous...

Last Sunday, June 20, in the New York Times, Jim Holt's THE WAY WE LIVE NOW column was titled "Against Happiness." (You will find that here.)

Holt did a riff on some findings reported in last month's issue of Psychological Science, the flagship journal of the American Psychological Society. The findings are available only to members of the society, and since I am not a member, and you are probably not a member, we have to take Holt's words for what was found.

And what was found?

Sad people are nice. Angry people are nasty. And, oddly enough, happy people tend to be nasty, too.

As Holt summarizes -

... researchers found that angry people are more likely to make negative evaluations when judging members of other social groups. That, perhaps, will not come as a great surprise. But the same seems to be true of happy people, the researchers noted. The happier your mood, the more liable you are to make bigoted judgments -- like deciding that someone is guilty of a crime simply because he's a member of a minority group. Why? Nobody's sure. One interesting hypothesis, though, is that happy people have an ''everything is fine'' attitude that reduces the motivation for analytical thought. So they fall back on stereotypes -- including malicious ones.

Or as Theodore Roethke, the famous poet from Saginaw, Michigan once said - "When I'm happy I can't think."

What's the problem?

This:

The news that a little evil lurks inside happiness is disquieting. After all, we live in a nation whose founding document holds the pursuit of happiness to be a God-given right. True to that principle, the United States consistently ranks near the top in international surveys of happiness. ... Of course, happiness has always had its skeptics. Thinkers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn have criticized it as a shallow and selfish goal. But the discovery that happiness is linked to prejudice suggests a different kind of case against it. Does happiness, whether desirable or not in itself, lead to undesirable consequences? In other words, could it be bad for you, and for society?

Perhaps so.

Yes, some have worried that happy people tend to be apathetic and easily manipulated by political leaders -- contented cows, so to speak. Holt cites Huxley's ''Brave New World'' where the working classes are kept in docile submission by a diet of drugs that render them universally happy. But Holt argues that in the real world there is little evidence that happiness creates complacent citizens; in fact, studies show that happy people are more likely than alienated people to get politically involved, not less.

Really?

There is much here too on personal happiness, as self-delusion.

But the odd observation is that awful things can happen when people are feeling really good.

Example?

See Euphoria led to the Holocaust
Neal Ascherson, The Observer (UK), Sunday May 23, 2004

This is a review of a curious book -

The Origins of the Final Solution
by Christopher Browning
Heinemann ?25, pp. 644

It seems Christopher Browning argues here that the Holocaust began as the Nazis swept across Russia - rather than, as is usually said, as a response to their later defeat at Moscow. Things were going well (at the time) - the world was the oyster so to speak. They were happy. Their self-esteem was really high. They felt empowered and joyous. Why not get rid of the pesky Jews once and for all? What could be wrong with that?

It was a victorious, happy time. There was, then, little motivation for analytical thought.

What about now?

Things aren't going well for us in Iraq. There is much gnashing of teeth and anguish in the land, and bitter dispute.

God help us, God help the world, and God help the Iraqis if things were going really well and we were fat dumb and happy. That way lies madness.

Posted by Alan at 19:01 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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Topic: Couldn't be so...

Something is up. Or maybe not. Or maybe so.

Federal prosecutors interviewed George Bush today at the Oval office concerning the leak of CIA Agent Valerie Plame's identity, which is the subject of a grand jury investigation. (Associated Press report here...) The questioning lasted seventy minutes and was done by chief prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Bush's personal lawyer, Jim Sharp, whom he retained for the occasion, was present.

The president didn't use Alberto Gonzalez, White House counsel, in the interview. He didn't use Ted Olson, the US Solicitor General, the guy who argues for the government. He hired a private attorney for this.

What could that mean?

Semisolid nitrogenous waste matter seems to be hitting the fan. Reminds one of the old days with Nixon.

Remember this?

The so-called Saturday Night Massacre was the dismissal of special prosecutor Archibald Cox and the forced resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus by U.S. President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal on the night of Saturday, October 20, 1973.

Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor who was appointed by Congress to investigate the events surrounding the Watergate break-in of June 17, 1972, had earlier issued a subpoena to President Nixon, asking for copies of taped conversations which Nixon had made in the Oval Office as evidence. Nixon initially refused to comply with the subpoena, but on October 19, 1973, he offered what was later known as the Stennis Compromise, asking a Senator to review and summarize the tapes for the special prosecutor's office. Cox refused the compromise that evening, and it was believed that there would be a short rest in the legal maneuvering while government offices were closed for the weekend.

However, President Nixon acted to dismiss Cox from his office the next night. He contacted Attorney General Richardson and ordered him to fire the special prosecutor. Richardson refused, and instead resigned in protest. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; he, too, refused and resigned.

Nixon then contacted the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, and ordered him as acting head of the Justice Department to fire Cox. Richardson and Ruckelshaus had both personally assured the congressional committee overseeing the special prosecutor investigation that they would not interfere; Bork had made no such assurance to the committee, and complied with Nixon's order.

Congress was infuriated by the act, which was seen as a gross abuse of Presidential power. In the days that followed, numerous bills of impeachment against the President were introduced in Congress. Nixon defended his actions in a famous press conference on November 17, 1973, in which he said, "...in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I should say that in my years of public life that [sic] I've welcomed this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their President's a crook. Well, I'm not a crook!"

The Independent Counsel Act, passed in 1978, was a direct result of the Massacre.

Now an independent counsel has to talk with Bush, and in response Bush brings in his own outside attorney - just to be safe.

Ah, I may be reading too much into this.

But then also there was an announcement in Washington today that Ted Olson, the US Solicitor General, the guy who argues the government's official positions, is resigning. He's leaving in July. Olson lost his wife on 9/11 as she was on the 757 that slammed into the Pentagon. He dutifully argued last month before the Supreme Court that the president had the absolute right to name anyone, citizen or not, an "enemy combatant" - and then hold that person without any charges and without access to counsel, without any communication to anyone, in secret, for as long as the president decides is long enough, or forever if the president decides so. Olson argued in the parallel case that anyone we held at Guant?namo has no rights under any of our laws or any international treaties to which we are a party (like the Geneva Conventions) - the matter was outside the United States and no US laws or treaty obligations applied at all. He argued last year in the University of Michigan affirmative action case that no state-funded university had the right to set up special programs to attract minority students - as that's picking on the white folk.

Heck, Olson was the guy who successfully represented Bush in the Supreme Court case in 2000 that halted ballot counting in Florida and confirmed Bush's "election" over Gore. In his confirmation hearings the Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked on Olson's nomination, 9-9, with Democrats saying he hadn't "been candid" about his involvement all those efforts to dig up damaging material on President Bill Clinton. The floor resolved that.

He's Bush guy. He's walking. Why?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Something is up. Even Dick Cheney is losing it. Yesterday when lining up for the annual group photograph of the Senate - the Vice President is also de jure President of the Senate - Cheney lost his temper and said a nasty word. Really.

As CNN reports it -

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Typically a break from partisan warfare, this year's Senate class photo turned smiles into snarls as Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly used profanity toward one senior Democrat, sources said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who was on the receiving end of Cheney's ire, confirmed that the Vice President used profanity during Tuesday's class photo.

A spokesman for Cheney confirmed there was a "frank exchange of views."

Using profanity on the Senate floor while the Senate is session is against the rules. But the Senate was technically not in session at the time and the normal rules did not apply, a Senate official said.

The story, which was recounted by several sources, goes like this:

Cheney, who as president of the Senate was present for the picture day, turned to Leahy and scolded the senator over his recent criticism of the vice president for Halliburton's alleged war profiteering.

... Responding to Cheney's comment, Leahy reminded him of an earlier statement the vice president had made about him. Cheney then replied with profanity.

Leahy would not comment on the specifics of the story Thursday, but did confirm that Cheney used profanity.

"I think he was just having a bad day," said Leahy, "and I was kind of shocked to hear that kind of language on the floor."

Kevin Kellems, a spokesman for the vice president, said, "That doesn't sound like the kind of language that the vice president would use, but I can confirm that there was a frank exchange of views."

It seems Cheney shouted "F**K YOU!" at Leahy. (No, the missing letters do NOT mean the word here is "firetruck.")

Damn. What next?

Here's a good question someone asked me about this - If this is somehow on tape, and if Howard Stern played it on his radio show - who would the FCC fine? Cheney or Stern?

Inquiring minds want to know.

All in all one senses things disintegrating - entropy and chaos theory at work in the halls of power.

Posted by Alan at 18:23 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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Topic: Dissent

Is there such a thing as a legitimate abuse of power?
Who else is saying what else about the Michael Moore film?
A quick survey....

David Edelstein has a problem -

Along with many other polite liberals, I cringed last year when Moore launched into his charmless, pugilistic acceptance speech at the Academy Awards. Oh, how vulgar, I thought--couldn't he at least have been funny? A year later, I think I might have been too hard on the fat prick. Six months before her death in 1965, the great novelist Dawn Powell wrestled in her diary with the unseemliness of political speech during an "artistic" event: "Lewis Mumford gave jolt to the occasion and I realized I had gotten as chicken as the rest of America because what he said--we had no more right in Vietnam than Russia had in Cuba--was true but I did not think he should use his position to declaim this. Later I saw the only way to accomplish anything is by 'abusing' your power."

Exactly. Fahrenheit 9/11 is not a documentary for the ages, it is an act of counterpropaganda that has a boorish, bullying force. It is, all in all, a legitimate abuse of power.

That comes at the end of this review -

Proper Propaganda
Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is unfair and outrageous. You got a problem with that?
David Edelstein - SLATE.COM - Posted Thursday, June 24, 2004, at 4:00 PM PT

David is conflicted -

In 20 years of writing about film, no movie has ever tied me up in knots the way Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (Lions Gate) has. It delighted me; it disgusted me. I celebrate it; I lament it. I'm sure of only one thing: that I don't trust anyone--pro or con--who doesn't feel a twinge of doubt about his or her responses.

Ah, but you see doubt is useful. As Voltaire said - Doubt is not a very pleasant state, but certainty is a ridiculous one.

Moore in this film has no doubts -

The liberals' The Passion of the Christ, it ascribes only the most venal motives to the other side. There is no sign in the filmmaker of an openness to other interpretations (or worldviews). This is not quite a documentary--which I define, very loosely, as a work in which the director begins by turning on the camera and allowing the reality to speak for itself, aware of its complexities, contradictions, and multitudes. You are with Moore, or you are a war criminal. The film is part prosecutorial brief and part (as A.O. Scott has noted) [see below] rabid editorial cartoon: a blend of insight, outrage, and sniggering innuendo, the whole package threaded (and tied in a bow) with cheap shots, some of them voiced by Moore, some created in the editing room by intercutting stilted images from old movies. Moore is largely off-screen (no pun intended), but as narrator he's always there, sneering and tsk-tsking.

In short, it just isn't fair.

One of Edelstein's examples of that?

All right, you can make anyone into a goofball with a selection of unflattering shots and out-of-context quotations, but it is so very easy to make George W. Bush--with his near-demonic blend of smugness and vacuity--look bad. Or is this in eye of the beholder? Perhaps when Bush speaks of hunting down terrorists, then gets down to the real, golfing business--"Stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive"--you see an honest, plainspoken leader unfairly ridiculed. But what can even Bush partisans make of those seven minutes in the elementary school classroom after he received the news that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center and the nation was under attack? ... It is downright spooky to watch the nominal commander in chief and "leader of the free world" behave, in a moment of crisis, like a superfluous man.

Well that's one view of Bush. Superfluous.

Fair? Does it matter? Edelstein suggests context might be useful here -

Fahrenheit 9/11 must be viewed in the context of the Iraq occupation and the torrent of misleading claims that got us there. It must be viewed in the context of Rush Limbaugh repeating the charge that Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster murdered in Fort Marcy Park, or laughing off the exposure of Valerie Plame when, had this been a Democratic administration, he'd be calling every day for the traitor's head. It must be viewed in the context of Ann Coulter calling for the execution of people who disagree with her. It must be viewed in the context of another new documentary, the superb The Hunting of the President, that documents--irrefutably--the lengths to which the right went to destroy Bill Clinton.

Moore might be a demagogue, but never--not even during Watergate--has a U.S. administration left itself so open to this kind of savaging.

And Edelstein didn't even mention the many articles in WorldNetDaily claiming the Fox News anchor Brit Hume has every reason to slant the news against the liberal left and anyone who supports anyone in the Democratic Party - as WorldNetDaily is claiming Hillary Clinton not only murdered White House counsel Vincent Foster, she also ordered the murder of Brit Hume's son, or maybe shot him herself - neither was, really, a suicide. Everyone knows that.

Such is the climate. Moore just jumps in from the other side, giving as good at he and his allies get. Food fight!

And it is getting nasty. Over at cusor.org you see that the Federal Elections Committee seems to be going to rule all advertising for the Michael Moore film will be illegal as of July 30 or so. Ya gotta love it!

The Hill reports that a draft advisory opinion by the FEC's general counsel, generated under a McCain-Feingold prohibition on corporate-funded ads that identify a federal candidate before a primary or general election, could stop the advertising of "Fahrenheit 9/11" and other political documentaries and films, as of July 30th, 30 days before the Republican Convention.

The article says the opinion was in response to a request for guidance from David Hardy, a documentary film producer with an organization called the Bill of Rights Educational Foundation, but it doesn't say if he's also an author.

Other films that could be affected by the ruling are "Uncovered," "The Corporation," "The Hunting of the President" and John Sayles' forthcoming "Silver City," which features Colorado gubernatorial candidate, "Dickie" Pillager.

Cool.

As Bob Patterson, who writes in these pages under the moniker of "The World's Laziest Journalist," said in an email today:

Why stop with stopping dissention via documentary films?

If you will refer to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, (page 196 ff) Gleichschaltung (suppressing dissent) is right on schedule. Moore is the anti-Riefenstahl. Pro-Bush documentaries will meet much less resistance.

Surely it's not THAT bad yet.

But it is curious.

Via the Guardian (UK), here's a roundup of review nuggets from all the other papars. As for me, let the guys at the Guardian do the research on American opinion. Many people said many things. I didn't want wade through it all. And there is really no more to say, or so I suspect.

"While Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 will be properly debated on the basis of its factual claims and cinematic techniques, it should first of all be appreciated as a high-spirited and unruly exercise in democratic self-expression."
- AO Scott, New York Times

"No moviegoer will be bored. The documentary's scathing attack on the war in Iraq and George W Bush's presidency is informative, provocative, frightening, compelling, funny, manipulative and, most of all, entertaining."
- Claudia Puig, USA Today

"Fahrenheit 9/11 is at its best when it provides talking points for the emerging majority of those opposed to the Iraq incursion. In sum, it's an appalling, enthralling primer of what Moore sees as the Bush administration's crimes and misdemeanors."
- Mary Corliss, Time

"Its title notwithstanding, Michael Moore has delivered a film rather less incendiary than might be expected - or wished for by his fans - in Fahrenheit 9/11. The sporadically effective docu trades far more in emotional appeals than in systematically building an evidence-filled case against the president and his circle."
- Todd McCarthy, Variety

"Fahrenheit 9/11 comes to many of the same conclusions as the recent 9/11 panel. The film will play to the choir and may influence voters, especially younger ones, who are straddling the fence ... If you want to be part of the debate, Fahrenheit 9/11 is must-see cinema."
- James Verniere, Boston Herald

"What's remarkable here isn't Moore's political animosity or ticklish wit. It's the well-argued, heartfelt power of his persuasion. Even though there are many things here that we have already learned, Moore puts it all together. It's a look back that feels like a new gaze forward."
- Desson Thomas, Washington Post

"Moore's supporters are quick to impugn the liberal credentials of anyone who criticizes his presentation of the information he digs up (or, in some cases, makes up). For them, Michael Moore is the issues he talks about, so his detractors must be enemies of democratic principles. It's an old trick, akin to the way Pauline Kael was accused of being insensitive about the Holocaust when she didn't like Shoah."
- Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

"Although overlong and hampered by a rambling argument, the movie does make a compelling narrative. It also succeeds as entertainment ... If Moore is formidable, it's not because he is a great film-maker (far from it) but because he infuses his sense of ridicule with the fury of moral indignation."
- J Hoberman, Village Voice

"One last thought: Fahrenheit 9/11 is many things, but for pity's sake let's not call it a documentary."
- Ty Burr, Boston Globe

And so on. And so forth.

This will die down. Eventually.

Or maybe not.

Posted by Alan at 17:23 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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Topic: Dissent

If Michael Moore had any self-control... The film he didn't make.

Just for a change of pace I sometimes take advantage of my high-speed internet connection and listen to live streaming radio from Paris - TSF is a fine jazz station. CherieFM provides pop crap while NovaPlanet provides world, hip-hop and techno-trance, if that's you thing. News? The 13h00 and 20h00 streaming video newscasts from TF1 are amusing. And France2 is reliable.

What I missed, since I don't indulge myself in this stuff that often, is a film originally made for the French public broadcaster, France 2, a documentary they premiered on television last Friday (June 18). Curiously the film opened theatrically in France on Wednesday (June 23) - which doesn't happen anywhere that often. A made-for-television documentary, already aired, sent to movie theaters where folks have to pay to see it? How odd.

Jean-Francois Lepetit, who runs Flach Film, the folks who produced the movie, says, "We wanted to give the film a wider audience." I guess nobody watches France2. Just like CBS here.

Will people go to theaters to see what was on television the week before? Probably so. It's a George Bush thing.

This seems to be a film that might be called a thinking man's "Fahrenheit 911" - the film Michael Moore might have made if he were, say, dispassionate. Moore isn't. No kidding.

The film is "Le Monde Selon Bush" (The World According to Bush) - and it's ninety minutes of material put together by William Karel. Karel is a Tunisian-born Swiss fellow who insists he "adores" America, but chose to make the film because "it's a true story stranger than fiction."

Yep, we've heard that before.

If you also have a high-speed internet connection you can see trailers for this film here - and the France2 "teaser" used to promote the film. The clips show lots of folks talking about George Bush in English with subtitles in French. (This is the reverse of going to see French art films in Manhattan, of course. Quite odd. Once, while living in the West Indies, I saw the old Errol Flynn "Robin Hood" dubbed into Spanish with English subtitles - and out here in Los Angeles on local television you sometimes catch Hong Kong martial arts movies, or Korean soap operas, dubbed from the Asian language into Spanish with English subtitles. Linguistic surprises everywhere, no?)

Anyway, this is what the Hollywood Reporter (now owned by Reuters) has to say about this other film critically examining Bush and his crew.

French Filmmaker Takes Own Stab at Bush

PARIS (Hollywood Reporter) - When "Fahrenheit 9/11" was selected for the Cannes Film Festival, another documentary about George W. Bush was waiting in the wings in case Michael Moore's film wasn't ready in time.

"The organizers were keen to include our film in the Official Selection but felt it was politically incorrect to have two anti-Bush documentaries at Cannes," says Jean-Francois Lepetit, whose Flach Film produced "Le Monde Selon Bush" (The World According to Bush).

Directed by seasoned documentary maker William Karel, the 90-minute film could scarcely be more different to Moore's Palme d'Or winner. Karel's style is sober, eschewing humor and stunts in favor of heavyweight interviews.

"Le Monde" is a scathing attack on Bush's first 1,000 days in power, and chronicles the first family's alleged links with the oil and arms industries.

... Inspired by journalist-author Eric Laurent's two books on the Bush administration, "Le Monde" is the fifth film by Karel examining American political power.

... Spending more than eight months battling "the veil of secrecy" surrounding those in office, Karel managed 26 detailed interviews, with personalities including Secretary of State Colin Powell, neo-conservative Richard Perle, former CIA directors James Woosley and David Kay, writer Norman Mailer, academics and journalists.

"I was amazed how willing some people were to be interviewed, straight after they had left government and were no longer bound by secrecy laws," Karel says.

The EUR500,000 ($605,000) film covers many topics, including how the "Christian right Israeli lobby" has influenced U.S. policy in the Middle East and how the Sept. 11 attack gave a "clueless" Bush his raison d'etre -- the "crusade" against terrorism, the "false pretext" under which the second war on Iraq was waged, and the "big lie" linking Saddam Hussein to Sept. 11. The film illustrates how George H.W. Bush, first as vice president and then as president from 1988 to 1992, armed and financed Saddam Hussein. The Bush family's alleged ties to the Bin Laden clan and Saudi Arabia are also examined.

Moore covers much of this.

How is this film so different? It seems to be a matter of tone.

Karel insists his film is not a French diatribe against America but rather a gathering of eyewitness accounts from Americans who lived through the times. "To think President Richard Nixon was impeached because of three tapes!" Karel exclaims. He hopes the film will be seen in the United States. "None of my films have made it to the U.S., but I'm hopeful that this one will," he says.

Don't hold your breath, Bill. Getting Moore's film to market over here was difficult enough.

Posted by Alan at 11:03 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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