Fahrenheit 911 misses the mark

Found at wood s lot: John Chuckman at Yellowtimes.org presents a distinctly Canadian [or ex-patriate American] view of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11:

The film is at its heart a thoroughly conservative document, a fact which generally has gone unnoticed except in Robert Jensen's acute review, 'A Stupid White Movie' [at Counterpunch] Worse, it explains virtually nothing about events it claims to examine.

Michael Moore's role is to make American liberals feel good about themselves without having to question the practices of a society which cast an increasingly long, cold, dark shadow over the planet. The job pays well, and Moore is becoming a wealthy man, a kind of well-kept court jester for those with occasional twinges of liberal conscience or human decency.

[snip]

Moore told the world some months back that he had found his presidential candidate in former General Wesley Clark. That announcement should have been a warning, because Clark is indistinguishable in his views from George Bush, and the general's behavior in the former Yugoslavia was arrogant, provocative, and dangerous.

Moore simply wants to be rid of Bush, and he was ready to support an opportunistic and dangerous man like Wesley Clark to do it. Now, in his movie he has assembled a pastiche of attitudes, assumptions, and interesting, but largely unenlightening, film clips hoping to elicit enough of an emotional response to be rid of Bush.

Why does Moore, and I use him to represent all of liberal America, so want to be rid of Bush that he takes what I regard as the unprincipled position of supporting someone as bad or worse?

I do not believe it is because Bush represents a danger to American values, the favorite charge of many fuzzy-thinking American liberals, because in many ways Bush accurately reflects those values. I think they are desperate to be rid of Bush because he is an embarrassment. There is something excruciatingly American about Bush, revealing some painful truths about the society he represents, much the same as was the case with President Nixon's brother and his efforts to create a fast-food empire based on Nixon-burgers or President Carter's whining, beer-swilling brother, Billy.

[snip]

The truth is that Bush is a fairly typical white, suburban, middle-aged American. He talks and thinks the way a great many Americans talk and think. He jogs and plays golf. He has a fondness for school-boy pranks, although less clever ones, similar to Michael Moore's. He unquestioningly accepts America's fairy-tale, official version of itself as God's own chosen place on the planet with liberty and justice for all - something shared by Michael Moore and most flag-waving American liberals.

[snip]

You may ask, we know Bush is a brutal, rather psychopathic man, so how can he be like so much of middle America? You see, middle America is not the harmless, gentle place it seems in Hollywood's confections. It is the place where thirty-year old couples assume they are entitled to a five-bedroom home on a sprawling lot in the suburbs with at least two lumbering vehicles in the driveway. It is the place which ignores the ugly parts of its own society, the ghettos, the broken-down schools, the lack of healthcare. It is the place where the relentless demand for still more endangers the planet's future. And it is the place that drives America to global empire.

Bush is not, as so many American liberals claim, out of step with American history. Childish slogans about taking back America or, even worse, 'Dude, Where's My Country?' are just that, childish. Bush is an awkward, unpleasant exemplar of enduring American behavior and values. Did the invasion of Iraq represent different values or attitudes than the 'Remember the Maine' invasion of Cuba? How about the invasion of Mexico, or the seizure of Hawaii, or the holocaust in Vietnam and Cambodia? Does the Patriot Act represent anything different than the Alien and Sedition laws of John Adam's day or the dark excesses of the FBI under Hoover?

[snip]

I have a problem with all the liberal whining in America over professional soldiers being killed in Iraq, actually still a small number compared to the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed both in the war and in the decade-long run-up of brutally harsh American-imposed restrictions, and it is no different for Moore's scene of a mother's tears. No, I'm not talking about the poor mother herself whose loss is real, but about the calculation of Moore's film in using the scene and about the very predictable result on American audiences. Pictures of a small number of flag-draped coffins appear to be almost the only thing fueling America's limp antiwar movement.

When I see pleas about dead American soldiers I can't help but think of all the tears shed at the Vietnam memorial for the relatively few who died helping in the work of bringing overwhelming destruction to another land, but there is never a tear shed for the millions of souls extinguished by America.

Mr. Chuckman concludes up condemning Senator Kerry:

. . . be very careful how you vote to get rid of Bush. Kerry has never so much as condemned the war. He has never condemned Bush, except by repeating official-report findings all thinking people on the planet understood a year before the official report. Kerry's view of the Middle East, frantic pandering to Israel's darkest interests, promises no end to future troubles. He is an unrepentant, unimaginative supporter of global empire.

That brings us to the real tragedy of America and the real cause of 9/11 and so many other horrors: America's swaggering readiness to play the game of global empire with all the brutality and incivility that it implies. You tell me how a confused film like Moore's, even if it contributes to toppling a confused President like Bush, adds anything to resolving America's great dilemma of insatiable greed and willingness to do terrible deeds while mouthing high-sounding ideals.

I suppose Mr. Chuckman would have us vote for Mr. Nader. Ugh. That won't be an option in Oklahoma!

Mr. Chuckman refers to Robert Jensen's piece--Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire :

I have been defending Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" from the criticism in mainstream and conservative circles that the film is leftist propaganda. Nothing could be further from the truth; there is very little left critique in the movie. In fact, it's hard to find any coherent critique in the movie at all.

The sad truth is that "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a bad movie, but not for the reasons it is being attacked in the dominant culture. It's at times a racist movie. And the analysis that underlies the film's main political points is either dangerously incomplete or virtually incoherent.

Read Mr. Jensen's piece for more on the subtle racism of Fahrenheit 9/11, and the half-baked sloganeering about the war on terror, the Bush-bin Laden family connection, etc. For me, the most persuasive part of Jensen's article is this:

The claim that "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a conservative movie may strike some as ludicrous. But the film endorses one of the central lies that Americans tell themselves, that the U.S. military fights for our freedom. This construction of the military as a defensive force obscures the harsh reality that the military is used to project U.S. power around the world to ensure dominance, not to defend anyone's freedom, at home or abroad.

Instead of confronting this mythology, Moore ends the film with it. He points out, accurately, the irony that those who benefit the least from the U.S. system -- the chronically poor and members of minority groups -- are the very people who sign up for the military. "They offer to give up their lives so we can be free," Moore says, and all they ask in return is that we not send them in harm's way unless it's necessary. After the Iraq War, he wonders, "Will they ever trust us again?"

It is no doubt true that many who join the military believe they will be fighting for freedom. But we must distinguish between the mythology that many internalize and may truly believe, from the reality of the role of the U.S. military. The film includes some comments by soldiers questioning that very claim, but Moore's narration implies that somehow a glorious tradition of U.S. military endeavors to protect freedom has now been sullied by the Iraq War.

The problem is not just that the Iraq War was fundamentally illegal and immoral. The whole rotten project of empire building has been illegal and immoral -- and every bit as much a Democratic as a Republican project. The millions of dead around the world -- in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia -- as a result of U.S. military actions and proxy wars don't care which U.S. party was pulling the strings and pulling the trigger when they were killed. It's true that much of the world hates Bush. It's also true that much of the world has hated every post-WWII U.S. president. And for good reasons.

It is one thing to express solidarity for people forced into the military by economic conditions. It is quite another to pander to the lies this country tells itself about the military. It is not disrespectful to those who join up to tell the truth. It is our obligation to try to prevent future wars in which people are sent to die not for freedom but for power and profit. It's hard to understand how we can do that by repeating the lies of the people who plan, and benefit from, those wars.

Fahrenheit 9/11 has not shown in my town (not surprising) so I probably won't get to see it. No great loss.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

This is the new gulag

Sidney Blumenthal in the Guardian--This is the new gulag:

Bush has created a global network of extra-legal and secret US prisons with thousands of inmates

"My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture," said Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defence on Tuesday. "I don't know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there's been a conviction for torture. And therefore I'm not going to address the torture word."
He confessed he had still not read the March 9 report by Major General Antonio Taguba on "abuse" at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Get with the program: Ghost Town Orange has already read the report. Rumsfeld hasn't read the Taguba report? Bush should fire him! Back to the quote:

Some highlights: " ... pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape ... sodomising a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick ... "

The same day that Rumsfeld added his contribution to the history of Orwellian statements by high officials, the Senate armed services committee was briefed behind closed doors for the first time not only about Abu Ghraib, but about military and CIA prisons in Afghanistan. It learned of the deaths of 25 prisoners and two murders in Iraq; that private contractors were at the centre of these lethal incidents; and that no one had been charged. The senators were given no details about the private contractors. They might as well have been fitted with hoods.

If the Bushites keep power, this sort of talk will be called "premature anti-fascism;" we're not allowed to criticize our dear leaders until the "war on terror" has been won. Mr. Blumenthal worked at the White House in the good old days (i.e., when Bill Clinton was President.)

And phony Ralph Nader will claim there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans.

When Salmon Are "Wild," And Other Word Games

From the May 10, 2004 issue of Time: When Salmon Are "Wild," And Other Word Games -- by Daren Fonda

President Bush may not be remembered as a linguistic innovator. But in the tradition of classifying ketchup as a vegetable, a classic from the Reagan era, the Bush Administration may leave a rich legacy of redefining terms for regulatory purposes. Perhaps you thought a wild fish is one hatched in the wild. You would be mistaken, according to Bush's environmental stewards. Under a new plan, the distinction between farm-bred salmon, which are later released into rivers and streams, and their cousins hatched in the wild will be removed. That will instantly raise the overall tally of salmon — and make it more probable that the government will eliminate or downgrade protections for 15 salmon species now sheltered under the Endangered Species Act. Such a change is favored by power and timber companies, whose development plans have been stymied by the government's protective net. Environmentalists complain that the action will jeopardize the survival of wild salmon.

(emphasis added, of course.) Is Ralph Nader still saying there isn't any difference between Democrats and Republicans?

Ralph Nader is a Phony

and Randi Rhodes is mad at him: click here for the transcript from Nader's appearance on the first day of Air America (by cker at Daily Kos). Here's a link to the mp3 of Nader's appearance. From the comments section of Daily Kos:

The reason i think that this exchange was not only entertaining, but NECESSARY is because Nader and his far left constituencies need to learn that progressive thinking without pragmatism is about as effective as useful as a one-legged-dog with rabies.
--beedee

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Ralph Nader is a phony

Why would Ralph Nader not reveal where his campaign headquarters is? Perhaps because Citizen Works [a Nader 501(c)(3) and the Nader campaign are both operating out of 1400 16th Street in Washington DC.

Of course, nonprofit 501 (c) (3) organizations, even those founded by Ralph Nader to advance justice by strengthening citizen participation in power, aren't supposed to share equipment, expenses or personnel with political campaigns. That's prohibited by federal law. We probably shouldn't hold our collective breath waiting for the Bush Administration's tax authorities to look into this matter, but it sure seems like Nader's presidential campaign may not only be reckless and selfish, but corrupting, too.

There's more in Joe Conason's Salon.com article. (You'll have to click through the ads if you're not a subscriber.)

Ralph Nader is a Fraud, part 3

For more criticism of the phony Ralph Nader, check out this article THE MYTH OF THE 'GOOD' NADER / Make You Ralph by Jonathan Chait in the March 8 issue of the New Republic. The main point of the article is Mr. Nader's long-standing hostility to liberals and over-all ineffectiveness in the realm of politics:

The qualities that liberals have observed in him of late--the monomania, the vindictiveness, the rage against pragmatic liberalism--have been present all along.

Nader's first crusade: against the Chevy Corvair:

Justin Martin, in his fair-minded 2002 biography, Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon, shows how Nader hounded liberal Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff into investigating whether GM had lied about what it knew in testimony before Congress. In a letter to Ribicoff, Nader wrote, "Now comes decisive evidence which reveals a labyrinthic and systematic intra-company collusion, involving high General Motors officials, to sequester and suppress company data and films." Nader insisted he had an array of inside sources and documents that would reveal this conspiracy. Ribicoff dutifully assigned a pair of staffers to the case, and they spent two years chasing down Nader's leads. None of them panned out. The investigators found no evidence that GM knew of the Corvair's safety flaws. The failure to confirm Nader's suspicions enraged him. "He could not let go of the Corvair issue," one of the staffers told Martin. "He was fixated. And, if you didn't accept or believe the same things he did, you were either stupid or venal."

(my emphasis added.) Do not confuse Mr. Nader with the facts; if you disagree with him you are a part of the corporate conspiracy against him.
In the legislative process, Mr. Nader has a pattern of holding out for the 'perfect bill,' savagely attacking any liberal politician that has any doubts about his proposals. One example of several in Chait's article:

He attacked Colorado liberal Pat Schroeder, who had supported earlier versions of the CPA but had minor reservations this time, as a "mushy liberal" selling her vote to corporate contributors.

I vaguely remember $1 or $2 of UCLA student fees automatically going to something called CALPIRG--now I find out that PIRGs were Nader-sponsored activist groups:

In the 1970s, he worked to establish automatic funding for Public Interest Research Groups (pirg) on campus--proto-Naderite outfits to train the next generation of like-minded activists. Nader's preferred funding mechanism was for every student to automatically contribute $1; those who objected could go to the college administration for a refund.

Mr. Nader's conviction that there is no substantial difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties is at least 20 years old:

In 1980, Nader told Rolling Stone, "In the last year we've seen the 'corporatization' of Jimmy Carter. Whereas he was impotent and kind of pathetic the first year and a half, he's now surrendered. ... The two-party system, by all criteria, is bankrupt--they have nothing of any significance to offer the voters, so a lot of voters say why should they go and vote for Tweedledum and Tweedledee." (Liberals today who anguish over Nader's insistence that no important differences exist between the two parties should note that this belief dates back more than two decades.)

Mr. Chaite concludes his article:

It's therefore both comic and sad when liberals take Nader at his word that he does not believe he affected the outcome of the 2000 race. The website RalphDontRun.net patiently explains how, if Al Gore had netted even 1 percent of Nader's 97,000 Florida votes, he would have overcome Bush's 537-vote margin. Like other liberals, the people behind the website seem to think, if they could only persuade Nader that his candidacy might help reelect Bush, it would dissuade him from running. More likely, it would have the opposite effect. The real mystery is not why Nader would do something so destructive to liberalism. It's why anybody ever thought he wouldn't.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Ralph Nader is a Fraud, part 2

Another in my occasional series. This installment features an article in LA Weekly by Doug Ireland-- "Nader and the Newmanites":

Nader has now jumped into bed with the ultrasectarian cult-racket formerly known as the New Alliance Party and its guru, Fred Newman: Ralph was the star attraction at a January conference of “independents” that was just a front for the Newmanite crazies. By rejecting the Greens’ ballot line, Nader will have huge difficulties getting his name on the ballot. So he went shopping for help in ballot access from the Newmanites. The New York Times reported Nader says he’ll “link up” with existing “independent” parties in New York and elsewhere — which can only mean the Newmanites (who control New York’s Independence Party and similar remnants of the Reform Party in many states).

This cult is the antithesis of every value Nader holds dear. A Maoist grouplet in the ’70s, the Newmanites morphed into supporters of Pat Buchanan in the Hitler-coddling commentator’s 2000 takeover of the Reform Party. Newman recruits and controls his followers through a brainwashing scheme baptized “social therapy,” designed to create blind allegiance to Newman. He has frequently dipped his rhetoric in the poisonous blood-libel of anti-Semitism, denouncing Jews as “storm troopers of decadent capitalism.” By French-kissing the cultists to get on the ballot, Nader has allowed himself to be used as bait to lure the unsuspecting into the Newmanite orbit, where they risk being sucked into the cult. That’s a betrayal of the many young people to whom Nader is still a hero. And an acid commentary on Nader’s judgment.

The groundswell of support Nader claims exists only in his mind. When the Times asked him if he wasn’t troubled by the fact that, on Meetup.com, only 375 people had registered for him — compared to 188,000 for Dean, 45,000 for Kerry, 23,000 for Kucinich and 9,000 for Edwards — Nader’s mind-boggling response was: “I really don’t deal with the Web. There isn’t time in the day to go into virtual reality.”

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Ralph Nader is a fraud, part 1

Now I'll begin an occasional series on the horribly mis-guided Ralph Nader. Our first installment features a quotation from Mark A. R. Kleiman post: Will Ralph get another free pass?:

One of the bitterest lessons I learned as a young and naive liberal staffer on Capitol Hill was that the 'public interest research' produced by the Nader groups was systematically fraudulent. Every time I actually got into an issue deeply enough to understand the details -- nuclear power, toxic waste, pharmaceutical regulation -- I discovered that the Naderites had no more respect for the facts than the industries they were fighting: in some cases, less.

(My emphasis)
Dr. Kleiman is a professor of policy studies at UCLA. He worked as a legislative assistant for Representative Les Aspin in 1974-75.

Nut-case Nader to Make Another White House Run in 2004

Here's the story: Nader to Make Another White House Run in 2004 (washingtonpost.com) (registration required)

Ralph Nader, whose third-party White House bid in 2000 was blamed by some Democrats for helping elect President Bush, said on Sunday he will try again this year, running as an independent.

Ignoring the pleas of Democrats who have asked him to stay out of the race, the veteran consumer advocate said he was running out of a strong desire to evict Bush from the White House.

This guy is even more insane than I thought: "running out of a strong desire to evict Bush from the White House"? This time, I hope liberal and progressive voters are smart enough not to vote for this idiot.

Ralph Nader calls me a censor?

Here's what Ralph Nader thinks of people who ask him not to run for President: they are censors.

During a Feb. 4 interview on NPR's "All Things Considered" program, Nader had this to say when asked about an editorial in The Nation urging him not to run this year: "It's a marvelous demonstration by liberals, if you will, of censorship. Now mind you, running for political office is every American's right. Running for political office means free speech exercise, it means exercising the right of petition, the right of assembly. And so when they say 'Do not run,' they're not just challenging and rebutting; they're crossing that line into censorship, which is completely unacceptable."

Mr. Nader, are you telling me that I can't ask you not to run for President? Who's attempting to censor whom?

Ralph Nader, do not run for President.

I'll post every negative thing I can find about the phony Ralph Nader if he decides to run.

News Flash: Pot calls the Kettle Black

Hey people, lay off the negative smear campaigns and dirty tricks (like the allegations about Senator Kerry's 'girlfriend'). Republicans are bound to be upset at what they have unleashed: Larry Flynt claims he has some dirt on George W. Bush (from Lloyd Grove's Lowdown in the New York Daily News):

Activist rocker Moby raised Republican hackles last week when he advised President Bush's enemies to engage in political mischief.

Moby told my fellow gossips Rush & Molloy: 'For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you're an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion.'

Now the incorrigible Larry Flynt says he plans to market a Bush abortion story as genuine - in a book to be published this summer by Kensington Press.

"This story has got to come out," the wheelchair-bound Hustler magazine honcho told the Daily News' Corky Siemaszko. "There's a lot of hypocrisy in the White House about this whole abortion issue."

Flynt claimed that Bush arranged for the procedure in the early '70s.

"I've talked to the woman's friends," Flynt said. "I've tracked down the doctor who did the abortion, I tracked down the Bush people who arranged for the abortion," Flynt said. "I got the story nailed."

Flynt wouldn't disclose whether he plans to name the woman.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie - who in a speech last week accused "Kerry campaign supporters," not just Moby, of hatching the Internet chat room scheme - was unavailable for comment on Flynt's charges.

But RNC spokesman Yier Shi told me: "The Democrats will do anything in this election, judging by their campaign tactics, to smear without any evidence or background. This is just another one of those cases."

Of course, if allegations like this are true, they are another nail in Bush's re-election coffin. To me, the Democrats have a great shot at winning the Presidency as long as leftist kooks like Ralph Nader (not a dime's worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats?) stay out of the race. I am more doubtful about the House and Senate. But divided government is probably best--let's hear it for gridlock!