Fahrenheit 9/11 Opens Friday

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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i completely disagree, this type of argument is like those who try to debunk the idea of sanity by arguing everyone is crazy. if you want to understand the difference between propaganda and genuine communication i would recommend enrolling in an ordinary language philosophy class… chomsky, habermas, wittgenstien, etc. have all dealt with this. what we are wittnessing in america under the decadence of the mass media is the complete FAILURE of democracy… the tyranny of the majority… (see Erich Fromm, among others, for more explaination.) There is very little, if any, genuine communcation left in our communities, only idealist agendas that operate in a machiavellianized fashion now exist in american public life. what i mean to say is people take what they believe to be right and propagate it through disinformative means because that is the only way… whether it be micheal moore, noam chomsky, bill oriley or rush limbaugh. because outlets of informed discourse, by parties directly involved in matters at hand, do not exist in our society the “right” thing never gets done simply because it is the right thing…

anyone who argues micheal moore “hates” america because he doesn’t support our goverment, or those constituents who formulate our foreign policy, needs a quick lesson in politcal science… you can hate your government to the fullest and still love your country… if this wasn’t the case our constitution wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on. do your know the difference between a government and a country, not to mention a nation???

i could really care less what bush’s idealogoy is, regardless of what it is, he is an incompetent man that lacks the skill to LEAD. He has failed as a leader so here our government stands afflicted by systemic problems that are cause by a lack of any leadership skills, which is skill #1 needed by a president.

The idealist is incorrigible: if he is thrown out of his heaven he makes an ideal of his hell. -Nietzsche

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From: foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2 … %2C00.html
"‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ Gets Standing Ovation
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
By Roger Friedman

The crowd that gave Michael Moore’s controversial “Fahrenheit 9/11” documentary a standing ovation last night at the Ziegfeld Theater premiere certainly didn’t have to be encouraged to show their appreciation. From liberal radio host/writer Al Franken to actor/director Tim Robbins, Moore was in his element.

But once “F9/11” gets to audiences beyond screenings, it won’t be dependent on celebrities for approbation. It turns out to be a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail.

As much as some might try to marginalize this film as a screed against President George Bush, “F9/11” — as we saw last night — is a tribute to patriotism, to the American sense of duty — and at the same time a indictment of stupidity and avarice.

Readers of this column may recall that I had a lot of problems with Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine,” particularly where I thought he took gratuitous shots at helpless targets such as Charlton Heston. “Columbine” too easily succeeded by shooting fish in a barrel, as they used to say.

Not so with “F9/11,” which instead relies on lots of film footage and actual interviews to make its case against the war in Iraq and tell the story of the intertwining histories of the Bush and bin Laden families.

First, I know you want to know who came to the Ziegfeld, so here is a partial list:

Besides Franken and Robbins, Al Sharpton, Mike Myers, Tony Bennett, Glenn Close, Gretchen Mol (newly married over the weekend to director Todd Williams), Lori Singer, Tony Kushner, “Angela’s Ashes” author Frank McCourt, Jill Krementz and Kurt Vonnegut, Lauren Bacall (chatting up a fully refurbished Lauren Hutton), Richard Gere, John McEnroe and Patti Smythe, former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Carson Daly, NBC’s Jeff Zucker, a very pregnant Rory Kennedy, playwright Israel Horovitz, Macaulay Culkin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kyra Sedgwick, Linda Evangelista, Ed Bradley, Tom and Meredith Brokaw, director Barry Levinson, NBC anchor Brian Williams, Vernon Jordan, Eva Mendes, Sandra Bernhard and the always humorous Joy Behar.

If that’s not enough, how about Yoko Ono, accompanied by her son, Sean, who’s let his hair grow out and is now sporting a bushy beard that makes him look like his late, beloved father John Lennon?

And then, just to show you how much people wanted to see this film, there was Martha Stewart, looking terrific. I mean, talk about an eclectic group!

Now, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that this movie has been the cause of a lot of trouble. Miramax and Disney have gone to war over it, and “The Passion of the Christ” seems like “Mary Poppins” in retrospect. Before anyone’s even seen it, there have been partisan debates over which way Moore may have spun this or that to get a desired effect.

But, really, in the end, not seeing “F9/11” would be like allowing your First Amendment rights to be abrogated, no matter whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat.

The film does Bush no favors, that’s for sure, but it also finds an unexpectedly poignant and universal groove in the story of Lila Lipscombe, a Flint, Mich., mother who sends her kids into the Army for the opportunities it can provide — just like the commercials say — and lives to regret it.

Lipscombe’s story is so powerful, and so completely middle-American, that I think it will take Moore’s critics by surprise. She will certainly move to tears everyone who encounters her.

“F9/11” isn’t perfect, and of course, there are leaps of logic sometimes. One set piece is about African-American congressmen and women presenting petitions on the Florida recount, and wondering why there are no senators to support them.

Indeed, those absent senators include John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy, among others, which Moore does not elaborate upon. At no point are liberals or Democrats taken to task for not supporting these elected officials, and I would have liked to have seen that.

On the other hand, there are more than enough moments that seemed to resonate with the huge Ziegfeld audience.

The most indelible is Bush’s reaction to hearing on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, that the first plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

Bush was reading to a grade-school class in Florida at that moment. Instead of jumping up and leaving, he instead sat in front of the class, with an unfortunate look of confusion, for nearly 11 minutes.

Moore obtained the footage from a teacher at the school who videotaped the morning program. There Bush sits, with no access to his advisers, while New York is being viciously attacked. I guarantee you that no one who sees this film forgets this episode.

More than even “The Passion of the Christ,” “F9/11” is going to be a “see it for yourself” movie when it hits theaters on June 25. It simply cannot be missed, and I predict it will be a huge moneymaker."

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I saw the film, and I remember that scene. Being Canadian, however, I never heard about it, and, still today, I can’t explain it. Is there someone who could explain to me why no liberal/democrat senator supported them officially?

Thank you

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how’s about some bleeding heart liberal dribble??? —>

And perhaps the great day will come when a people, distinguished by wars and victory and by the highest development of a military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifices for these things, will exclaim of its own free will, “We break the sword,” and will smash its entire military establishment down to its lowest foundations. Rendering oneself unarmed when one has been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling—that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind; whereas the so-called armed peace, as it now exists in all countries, is the absence of peace of mind. One trusts neither oneself nor one’s neighbor and, half from hatred, half from fear, does not lay down arms. Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared—this must someday become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth, too. - Nietzsche

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Ship of Fools

Good Painting.

Anyways, my question about the film is that the part about Bush sitting in the classroom after hearing about the planes, how was Bush to know what to do?
Running out in panic wouldn’t have helped anything and would only scared the children, running out in any fashoin could have scared the children. Also even if he did run out, what could he really do? The damage was done. And how was he susposed to know the full extent of the damage from just a guard whispering in his ear. For all he knew, maybe it was just a two man airplane.

Don’t get me wrong, I hate Bush. But I believe this point was blown out of context in the movie

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I totally and completely disagree. I think for someone to earn the title of President of United States, they should also possess the ability to stand up at any moment and say “Excuse me, there is an emergency I have to attend to.” in times of crisis.

What could he have done? He could have issued orders putting ‘birds’ in the sky that instant. What if there had been twenty planes hijacked? Should we excuse his next bout of indecision because things didn’t turn out alot worse?
The point is, we got a rare chance to see our President, the Alpha Male of the tribe,so to speak, in action during a time of crisis. His response was far from impressive. If Moore really wanted to drive the point home, he could have split the screen and showed the footage of the second collision and the seven minutes of both towers burning while our President sat there and read “My Pet Goat”.

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Correct me if i’m wrong but the order of putting birds in the sky could have been done regardless of whether he was there or not.

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First WTC tower struck: 8:46 AM

Second WTC Tower Struck 9:02
The president is informed of this, 9:04. Being the second such Collision of an airliner flying into a skyscraper on the same day, and the Sky Scraper in question being the second WTC tower to be struck, any possibility of two such accidents happening 1/4 hour apart would so unlikelyas to almost be impossible. Therefore, someone is attacking targets inside the united States with Commercial Aircraft. The Nation, is under attack.

9:12 Bush finally attends to his country.

Who can authorize civillian aircraft to be shot down?
cnn.com/US/9910/26/shootdown/
How long does it take to scramble fighters from langley and have them patroling the skies over Washington D.C.? I have read 10-12 minutes

Pentagon struck: 9:38

10:06 Flight 93 crashes.

And yes, there are tons of freaky conspiracy type stuff on the web when one starts investigating the whole ordeal.

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What was whispered into his ear and I quote was “Mr. President our country is under attack”.

Now what do you think a president should do upon hearing that? You think he should get up and try and find out what is happening, how are we being attacked, you know that sort of thing. It’s a nuclear age for godsake! But no he sat not knowing what to do. He wasn’t even reading to the children he was just staring before him. In a moment where the first duty of the president of the United States is required Bush was at a total loss.

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For those saying that Bush should have “put birds in the sky”… I am just curious what you would be saying now if Bush had done just that. If Bush orders that, he would basically be ordering the US military to destroy and kill an aircraft full of civilians. I believe all these aircraft (except for the one over the field) were over largely populated areas (i don’t really remember the flight paths). If you shoot them down, they could go down onto an elementary school, Children’s hospital, or some equaly unnerving possibility. I am just saying that the order to do something like that is not something that should be taken lightly or done rashly. Especially when you really don’t have the info as to what planes have been hijacked. Can you imagine planes being shot down with no terrorists on them?

Honestly, i cannot saying that putting “birds in the sky” would have been a better option at that point

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Yes, I realize im bringing up a fairly dead thread…but i guess its better then making a new one on something so similar.

Has anyone read this article presented by Dave Kopel, where he catagorized many false points found by he and other sources? davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysi … it-911.htm

It’s very intriguing, and pretty much chalks up Moore’s argument as propaganda. As a true journalist, he even shows us Moore’s response to points he makes, if he even has one.

I watched the movie the first week it was out and what my friend and I did was pay for one movie and then go to this one. I refuse for people to benefit off of propaganda. I found the film to be briliant, visualy impressive especially with how he plunged the theatre into blackness when the planes hit, and was able to emotionally bind us to various scenes on the screen. He is obviously very good at his craft, I will give him that. Not to mention that watching his film you realize he’s a genius…of the same caliber you would consider a particularly clever theif to be genius. He ability to make you second guess even the historical and known facts is remarkable.

To answer the last discussed point of non movement right when he was made aware of the attacks I offer up this bit of the article (Which can be found by following the link I posted earlier):

Deceit 7
Bush on September 11

Cheap Shot

Fahrenheit mocks President Bush for continuing to read the book My Pet Goat to a classroom of elementary school children after he was told about the September 11 attacks. Actually, as reported in The New Yorker, the book was Reading Mastery 2, which contains an exercise called “The Pet Goat.” The title of the book is not very important in itself, but the invented title of My Pet Goat makes it easier to ridicule Bush.

What Moore did not tell you:

Gwendolyn Tose’-Rigell, the principal of Emma E. Booker Elementary School, praised Bush’s action: “I don’t think anyone could have handled it better.” "What would it have served if he had jumped out of his chair and ran out of the room?"…

She said the video doesn’t convey all that was going on in the classroom, but Bush’s presence had a calming effect and “helped us get through a very difficult day.”

“Sarasota principal defends Bush from ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ portrayal,” Associated Press, June 24, 2004. Also, since the President knew he was on camera, it was reasonable to expect that if he had suddenly sped out of the room, his hasty movement would have been replayed incessantly on television; leaving the room quickly might have exacerbated the national mood of panic, even if Bush had excused himself calmly.

Moore does not offer any suggestion about what the President should have done during those seven minutes, rather than staying calm for the sake of the classroom and of the public. Nor does Moore point to any way that the September 11 events might have turned out better in even the slightest way if the President had acted differently. I agree with Lee Hamilton, the Vice-Chair of the September11 Commission and a former Democratic Representative from Indiana: “Bush made the right decision in remaining calm, in not rushing out of the classroom.”

Moreover, as detailed by the Washington Times, Ari Fleischer was in the back of the classroom, holding up a legal pad with the words, “DON’T SAY ANYTHING YET.” The Secret Service may well have been cautious about moving Bush, not only because of hijackings, but also because on the morning of September 11, a Middle Eastern man had tried to gain personal access to the President by falsely claiming that he was a journalist with a scheduled interview, and by asking for a Secret Service agent by name

[Moore response: Defends the factual accuracy of the segment, which no one has ever disputed, except regarding the book’s title.]