Burn, Baby, Burn: A Review of Fahrenheit 9/11

Pamela Oswald

Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is a documentary everyone 
should see. Pundits on the far right and in the corporate media 
who insist this film is "liberal propaganda" are absolutely 
correct; if propaganda is the connective tissue which makes 
relevant facts accessible to the average person, then yes, this 
is certainly propaganda. That it stands alone as possibly the 
sole example of progressive commentary which has reached a mass 
audience lately is not only a testament to Moore's genius, it is 
also a symptom of the parched ideological landscape to be found 
in 21st century American media. Disney, who had originally been 
contracted to distribute it, declined upon learning of the film's 
content.

Of course the capitalists don't like it; not only does it expose 
several unsavoury examples of conflict of interest at the highest 
levels of the current administration, it is executed in the 
peculiarly effective manner Moore perfected in his previous 
films, Roger And Me and Bowling For Columbine.

The material mined by Mr Moore will not be news to many in 
progressive circles. The facts that are building blocks for this 
work have been available for quite some time, but the intrinsic 
value of the film is Moore's uncanny ability to link pieces of 
seemingly disparate snippets to present the average person 
(typically too pressed for time to digest the implications of 
sound-bytes) with the truth. As he assembles the newsworthy 
pieces of this puzzle the scenes that emerge are a damning 
condemnation of George W Bush and his cronies.

I found Fahrenheit 9/11 to be an emotional roller-coaster 
ride. There is the black humour of Moore's use of old Dragnet 
footage in reference to the Bin Laden family being flown out of 
the country shortly after 9/11, approved and effected by senior 
members of the administration, when every other flight was 
grounded.

There is rage at the knowledge that our tax dollars are paying 
for the killing of Iraqi civilians, of which there are several 
disturbing scenes. There is the surrealism of an American soldier 
idly comparing the killing with his video games. In an especially 
wrenching scene, Donald Rumsfeld is shown discussing the 
"incredibly humane care" exhibited by the military in its choice 
of targets, while interspersed scenes show people being cut down 
by machine gun fire and wounded Iraqi children screaming.

There are two important women in this film; an unnamed Iraqi 
woman who is insane with grief at the loss of her children, 
house, and village; and Lila Lipscomb, whose son, an American 
soldier, was killed in Iraq.

These two women, from different cultures, wailing at the horror 
of war, serve to humanise the statistics so blithely reported in 
the corporate media; the US casualties are people's sons, 
daughters, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers; the dead Iraqi 
children piled in donkey carts are what the Pentagon calls 
"collateral damage", and every one of them has grieving family.

Fahrenheit 9/11 also comes very close to identifying the 
real cause of the economic woes which feed the war-machine with a 
steady supply of new recruits, yet, sadly, stops just short of 
identifying capitalism and capitalist excess.

The film is clearly a vehicle to unseat Bush and company in 
November, and barring a second coup by the radical right, it 
should succeed.

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Political Affairs Magazine, Communist Party, USA