I don't believe that my thinking is characterized by unquestioning
acceptance of anything. Gotta go right this sec but I will sure look
at that slate link later tonight. Comments in slate are usually pretty
intelligent.
Dana
----- Original Message -----
From: Angel Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 19:32:43 -0400
Subject: RE: Fahrenheit 9/11
To: CF-Community <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to
promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this
film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that
would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an
exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11
is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an
exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political
cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery."
"Fahrenheit 9/11 makes the following points about Bin Laden and about
Afghanistan, and makes them in this order:
1) The Bin Laden family (if not exactly Osama himself) had a close if
convoluted business relationship with the Bush family, through the
Carlyle Group.
2) Saudi capital in general is a very large element of foreign
investment in the United States.
3) The Unocal company in Texas had been willing to discuss a gas
pipeline across Afghanistan with the Taliban, as had other vested
interests.
4) The Bush administration sent far too few ground troops to Afghanistan
and thus allowed far too many Taliban and al-Qaida members to escape.
5) The Afghan government, in supporting the coalition in Iraq, was
purely risible in that its non-army was purely American.
6) The American lives lost in Afghanistan have been wasted. (This I
divine from the fact that this supposedly "antiwar" film is dedicated
ruefully to all those killed there, as well as in Iraq.)
It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which
Moore's direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions,
that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point.
Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming
economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban
regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not. (They
opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn't even let Tony Blair land
his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.)
Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all�the
latter was Moore's view as late as 2002�or we sent too few. If we were
going to make sure no Taliban or al-Qaida forces survived or escaped, we
would have had to be more ruthless than I suspect that Mr. Moore is
really recommending. And these are simply observations on what is "in"
the film.
If we turn to the facts that are deliberately left out, we discover that
there is an emerging Afghan army, that the country is now a joint NATO
responsibility and thus under the protection of the broadest military
alliance in history, that it has a new constitution and is preparing
against hellish odds to hold a general election, and that at least a
million and a half of its former refugees have opted to return."
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723
So...
How do those facts check out?
There is no reason to think that Moore's film is a mantra of truth
anymore than you buy the party line on why Iraq was attacked. By all
means go to look at it, but be aware of the agenda of the man making the
documentary, and view it with an open mind. Question it every step of
the way both what you are seeing and being told, and what you are not
seeing or being told.
-Gel
-----Original Message-----
From:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con
tent_id=1000536074
----- Original Message -----
From: Angel Stewart
Umm..Moore's stuff is BS.
Are you aware the amount of cuts he made to Charleton Heston's speech
at
the NRA to warp it to sound as though Heston was callously chiding the
Mayor and the city, and being completely disrespectful to the families
of those murdered at Columbine? Did you know that the NRA meeting was
planned years in advance, not on the spur of the moment in *reaction*
to
the Columbine shooting as Moore wanted you to believe? No you probably
don't. That's just one example of his intentional misdirection in his
so
called 'documentary'.________________________________
[Todays Threads] [This Message] [Subscription] [Fast Unsubscribe] [User Settings] [Donations and Support]
