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Sigh…
Michael Moore is at it again, using his latest film Fahrenheit 9/11 as a political tool. I hesitate to even write an article about this since in a way it helps promote him, but I need to say what I have to say.
My problem with this guy is that he creates propaganda films under the guise of being documentaries. It’s like a sociopath who has no problem doing harm to someone else but God help us if the same thing was done to him. Then it’s a crime, moral outrage, etc. When he does it his reaction is “What are you talking about? I’m not doing anything wrong.”.
I have heard some good things about Fahrenheit 9/11 as far as the more direct, emotional interviews… but I don’t think I’ll be able to get through all his extreme left-wing propaganda in order to find those nuggets in the film.
I’ve been reading some message boards, and I’m really struck by the large percentage of posters who are knee jerk liberals. Of course when I step back I think about the fact that most of the people online are probably relatively young and still see the world as a simple place. I too was once a Democrat. 
The one-sidedness is what gets to me, not only in his presentation in Fahrenheit 9/11 but in the general media. When I went looking, I found a site which lists Iraqi reconstruction progress. The site is usaid.gov/iraq.
Just a few of the accomplishments include:
- Three million children vaccinated.
- 700,000 pregnant women have been vaccinated.
- Renovating 52 primary health care clinics and re-equipping over 600 to provide essential primary healthcare services.
- Distributing 1.4 million liters of clean water each day to people in the cities of Al Basrah, Al Muthanna’, Kirkuk, and Mosul.
- Collaborating with Bechtel, CPA, and Task Force Restore Iraqi Electricity on projects to repair thermal units, replace and repair turbines, rehabilitate the transmission network, and install and restore generators.
- The reconstruction of the Khazir Bridge, a four-lane bridge located over the Greater Zab River on highway 2 between Mosul and Arbil, is complete.
- Work at the Tikrit Bridge is continuing in an effort to provide the necessary infrastructure for reviving commerce in Iraq.
- Rehabilitated 2,358 schools countrywide for the first term of the 2003/04 school year.
- Distributed 159,005 student desks, 26,437 teacher desks, 59,940 teacher chairs, 26,050 metal cabinets, 61,500 chalkboards, and 58,500 teacher kits.
- Reconstituting Baghdad area phone service by installing switches with 240,000 lines of capacity. Installed new switches and main distribution frames at 12 sites.
- Rehabilitating sewage and water treatment plants that are currently by-passing untreated sewage generated by millions of people into the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
- Repaired hundreds of breaks in Iraq’s critical and long neglected water network, significantly increasing water flow.
Where is that information in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11? Where do you hear that in the mainstream media?
1 Comments
As I understand it, the subject of Fahrenheit 9/11 is how the Bush family and the Bin Laden family are indirectly connected through “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” and that somehow makes Bush a hypocrite when he claims to be fighting terrorism.
This can be easily explained away by the fact that the Bin Laden family is huge. Osama has about 50 siblings, some of whom have lived in America for years. Some high-ranking person is bound to come across one of those family members at some point. But the important thing to remember is that the Bin Laden family completely disowned Osama in 1994. To this day, they are saying publicly that they want nothing to do with him.
Given the fact that both the Bush family and the Bin Laden family are powerful and wealthy, with major investments throughout the world, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if both families ended up investing in some of the same things. But to say that such actions make Bush light on terrorism…? Even though Osama plays no role in those investments, and doesn’t even profit from them? It sounds to me like Michael Moore is grasping at straws.
It would appear that Moore is selectively pulling the specific facts that help prove the point he’s trying to make, which is the exact opposite of what a true documentary filmmaker should do. Personally, I think the best solution is to let him make all the movies he wants. Eventually, people will discover that the “emperor” has no clothes, and his mega-publicity will be a thing of the past.
Brian