I Saw It! 9/11

This is the first part of probably five posts I will write to review Fahrenheit 9/11. I will synthesize it into one piece when done, but I want some feedback and comments on each part.

Fahrenheit 9/11

When my brother said he bought the bootleg in Baltimore I sighed in relief, “I won’t have to spend money to see a movie being distributed by Hezbollah in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates." But then came my brother’s rants about how this movie “proves” why people hate Bush. I tried to discuss with him (he’s 23, urban and not very well read) what propaganda is. Before even seeing the movie I asked Adam, “what if I followed you around with a camera for the last four years and then wanted to make a movie called, ‘Adam Arnwine Is a Moron;’ do you think it would be difficult to splice together footage of you falling down, or snoring or at a loss for words?” He agreed, but said, “Watch the movie, it’s all there on the screen, there’s no way to refute these facts!”

So I watched the movie and after 15 minutes I went up stairs to catch him before he went back home. “Adam, this man hasn’t said one factual thing in the first fifteen minutes. All he’s done is string together RACE-BAITING images to incite anger over voter “disenfranchisement”—whatever that means—and then goes to an “expert” saying that every recount showed that Al Gore won Florida. That’s an outright lie because every recount gives Bush the state by 537 votes.” He replied, “says who?” I said, “CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, Florida Sun-Sentinel…” Here’s the kicker:

Adam said, “that’s their opinion, what makes their truth any more true than what I saw in the movie.”

Without knowing it, Adam said something quite profound and demonstrated why Fahrenheit 9/11 is dangerous…I’ll get back to that later…

There are five major themes in the movie:

1. Bush stole the election.
2. Bush/Bath/Carlisle/Unocal/Oil/Halliburton….ad infinitem.
3. Administration pretends there is a terrorist threat when there really isn’t one.
4. Afghanistan.
5. Iraq/WMD/Bush Lied, Kids Died.

Sadly, the movie is simply a retelling of Dude, Where’s My Country which ...