Review: Will they trust us again?

This is another gem by Michael Moore, author of several books and movies unveiling some of the ragged truth about modern America. Will they trust us again is nothing more than page after page of letters from the troops.

These are shockingly raw letters talking of lost lives, interrupted dreams, rage at being misused for a war with such shaky premise, and more.

These are the troops who are supposedly all gung-ho fighters, republican to the core, supporting the commander in chief, and so on. Yet letter after letter talks of betrayal by their commanders, and in some cases how they hate their commander in chief.

To be sure the letters speak of dissension in the ranks. There are many gung-ho fighters in the military fully in support of what they're doing in Iraq and elsewhere. It's clear from this book that there are many dissillusioned fighters in that very same military, hating what they are being forced to do, perhaps even hating who they have become.

For example

I hate the army and my job. I am supposed to get out next February but will now be unable to because the asshole in the White House decided that now would be a great time to put a stop loss in effect for the army. So I get to do a second tour in Iraq and be away from those I love again because some asshole has the audacity to put others' lives on the line for his personal war. I thought we were the good guys.

This from an infantryman who began the war in complete support of the President and the stated goals.

("stop loss" is military jargon for the order that has gone out canceling all limits on the length of tour for all soldiers. This and other jargon is something you will learn through reading this book.)

I can't recommend this book more highly, for it will awaken you to the feelings our soldiers are going through. The news reports filtered through official journalism, or the statements by the country's leaders, well, they just cannot do justice to what our soldiers are experiencing on the ground in Iraq. It is in seeing their words, their heart and soul, that we can appreciate what they are doing.

I will warn you however, this is a very powerful book. It is full of heartrending stories. But, then, that's why I'm wholeheartedly recommending it.

Review: Farenheit 9/11

Michael Moore got his start in movies with muckraking pseudo-journalism, and he's only gotten better at this gig in the fifteen years since Roger and Me was released. In Farenheit 9/11 Moore has seemingly mastered the art of this type of story-telling, and has timed its release perfectly for the greatest effect in this years election cycle (late June, 1 month before the conventions).

Also of interest to viewers of this movie should be The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader by Michael Moore. This book presents all the fact-checking behind the movie. The movie, after all, is a non-stop whirwind of facts that were not well covered by the mainstream media. Much of the movies claims clearly are shocking to most of the audience, but to those of us who have been researching the truth for awhile none of the claims were at all outrageous.

The movie makes a series of assertions which will not be a surprise to readers of this web site. In fact the movie is pretty mild compared to the various assertions that were available for Moore to make in the film. On the other hand, a purely factual movie would not have been so gripping emotionally, and as we know the emotions are much stronger than the mind.

In this movie we witness the horror of the September 11, 2001 attack not directly through watching the airplanes hit the building, but indirectly through the eyes and anguish of the people on the scene. Their horror and overwhelm at watching people leaping to their deaths is very moving. And, as typical of the rest of the movie, the viewer is shifted from that horror to watching what President Bush was doing at that same moment. Namely, making a visit to a elementary school classroom, having just come off a month-long vacation during which he was briefed that al Qaeda was planning an attack using airplanes. Upon being told of airplanes hitting the World Trade Center did the President immediately leap into action? No, he sat there for many minutes listening to the teacher conducting the reading program. People were dying in the streets of Manhattan, and the President did "nothing" for several minutes. Of course, one wonders, what could he have done anyway?

Very emotionally moving and serves to underscore Moore's theme. That this President is a bufoon, that the wrong man was given the Presidency, and that this President's policies have led America greatly astray.

The entire movie is in this vein. Going back and forth between shocking images primarily of the fighting in Iraq, fact-telling, and humor. In one gross-out scene we see Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's favored grooming techniques. Moore must have excellent access to the camera-persons in the news media, for he shows dozens of short clips of the People of Power in moments of embarrasing humanity. Such as the makeup artistry in the moments before appearing on television (hence Wolfowitz's gross grooming techniques).

Some of the facts are interesting, so I will briefly recount them:

• On September 13, 2001 a large number of private airplane flights were sent across the U.S. to collect high level Saudi's and ferry them out of the country. In the movie this point isn't carefully laid out, and many of the reviewers think that Moore is claiming all aviation was still canceled at the time these flights were ferrying Saudi's out of the country. Craig Unger, who is featured prominently in Moore's movie, is the source of this information and in his book House of Bush, House of Saud details that these flights happened while private aviation was still grounded. Most of these flights were on private aircraft, not commercial, and had to be approved by the White House. What's alarming is that many of these Saudi's were members of the bin Laden family, and in general many of them should have been of interest to the FBI for questioning. Yet none of them were detained for questioning, and the White House is complicit in ferrying them out of the country.
• In the infamous flap over George W Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard, he spent a year of that time AWOL. During that AWOL period he was suspended from service. The Bush Administration released his service records in an attempt to prove that George W had done his service, and on the sheet detailing Bush's suspension from service one name was blacked out of someone else who had been suspended at the same time. However Moore already had a copy of that document, and in his copy the name was not blacked out. That name? James R. Bath, who went on to become a financier, handling the investment activities of Saudi Royals in Texas, one of whom is Osama bin Ladens half-brother. Some of those investments were in the string of failed businesses which George W Bush ran into the ground before going into politics (just like his father). Moore claims the link between the Bush and bin Laden families was formed soley through the James R Bath connection.
• George H W Bush's involvement in The Carlysle Group is detailed at some length. This company is a major world conglomerate, largely specializing in Defense Industries. It has on staff many former world leaders such as John Major and George H W Bush. George W Bush had worked briefly for this company as well. The bin Laden family had been a major investor in the Carlysle Group, and coincidentally the Carlysle Group was holding a meeting in Washington DC on September 11, 2001. The bin Laden family pulled out of the Group shortly after the attacks. This company is very secretive and steeped in controversy.

A question asked over and over again is Why are we attacking Iraq? The Iraqi's clearly had nothing to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks, yet on September 12, 2001 President Bush and others told Richard Clarke in no uncertain terms to find justification to attack Iraq (Against all Enemies). Moore proposes that it is the oil, of course, since Iraq has the second largest reserves of oil in the world (behind the Saudi's).

A little side story to the oil deal is the Oil Pipeline which had been proposed to go through Afghanistan. Central Asia has a large reserve of Oil, but there is no good way to get it to the ocean and thus on the world market. The straightest route is through Iran, but taking the pipeline through Iran would be dangerous to American interests and thus the pipeline has to take a different route. But none of the other routes were particularly interesting either. The agreement reached in the mid 1990's was to take the pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan, which meant that business negotiations were being conducted with the Taliban even while the Taliban was "harboring" Osama bin Laden who was known at that time to be conducting terrorist attacks against the U.S. such as the bombing of our embassies and of the U.S.S. Cole.

And who was placed into power in Afghanistan? Harmid Karzai, an advisor to the oil pipeline deal with Unocal which would have gone through Afghanistan. And what has been the major accomplishment of the Karzai government? Finalizing the agreements to route the pipeline through Afghanistan. And who else was involved with those negotiations? Why, a who's-who of the George W Bush Administration.

Hiding Dissent: Honesty in the Bush II Administration

The shuttering of dissent by the GW Bush administration, as discussed below, has only continued. Basically the attitude they are taking is that anybody who disagrees with them must be shouted down, shunned, rejected, and squashed.

An example today is the latest movie by Michael Moore. The movie is titled Fahrenheit 9/11 and covers an examination of the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, and how they were created. It supposedly (I haven't seen it yet) makes a number of very alarming connections that should shake this country's belief and loyalty to GW Bush. These connections have been covered on this web site, particularly here, but to mainstream America that's been spoonfed a pack of lies, these connections are sure to be very alarming.

The movie has been taking a long strange trip to being shown to the public. First there was the funding, and subsequent refusal to release the movie. The movie was made under the direction of a movie studio owned by Disney, however when the movie was finished and ready to release (in the Spring of 2004, smack in the middle of the election campaign) Disney refused to release the movie to the public. The claim they made is that the movie is highly political, and therefore was not appropriate to release during a campaign cycle as it might skew the election. However, Michael Moore being who he is, he went public with this, and raised a ruckus. This is America, land of Free Speech is it not?

Second, Michael Moore went to the Cannes movie festival with his movie. At the festival he won the Palm D'Or, a highly respected prize.

Third, he managed to find a distributor other than Disney to distribute the movie. So much for the attempt at censorship by Disney.

Now there is a cohort of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" types making various attempts to quash this movie, even as it is being released (salon.com article). The article details these smear campaigns

• David Bossie head of Citizens United. Busily making and airing political advertisements smearing not only Michael Moore's film, but Bill Clinton's memoir which is being distributed this week as well.
• Howard Kaloogian, whose Move America Forward launched a letter-writing campaign last week against a select number of theaters that planned to show "Fahrenheit." Kaloogian was part of a cabal that takes credit for recalling Gov. Gray Davis. Now they've set their sights on Moore.

While this may seem like a bit of a tempest in a teapot, it's part of a larger pattern. For example there is the case of Joseph Wilson and his wife. Wilson is a former ambassador, who under the previous Bush administration was co-chief of the Embassy in Iraq just before the first Gulf War, and was highly lauded by the previous Bush administration. He was sent by this Bush administration to do fact checking in Niger about possible sales of Uranium to Iraq, found the claims to be false, and said so to the administration, yet was shocked when the administration went on claiming the allegation to be true, and finally went public saying that he had told the administration this story was false. Ever since going public Wilson has been roundly denounced by the right wingers (whereas he had formerly been highly praised by them), and his wife's identity as a CIA agent was disclosed (this being an act of treason to disclose a secret agents identity). The Bush administrations response to the treason by one of their staff has been to stonewall the investigation. See The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies That Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity -- A Diplomat's Memoir

[2003 October 16]

In this year there is a lot to protest in what the Bush Administration is doing. There is a war in Iraq which I and many others didn't agree to, and which now appears to have been launched in a series of outright lies put forward as justification. The government is running a huge deficit, thanks to the tax cuts for the rich, and the costs of this war. The tax cuts were intended to incite "the economy" to recovery, but the recovery is still far away.

In short, times are hard, and the administration is failing its duty to the country.

Yet over and over, there are signs that the administration is ignoring dissent. This goes back to GW Bush's inauguration, under a cloud of controversy. Recall that the election was highly contested, and may well have been stolen (nobody was sure), and many protesters lined the Inaugural Parade route with signs reading "Hail To The Theif" and the like. But, were those signs broadcast on television? Nope.

Rather than face any criticisms, the administration engages in spin meistering to deflect the criticism, attacks on character, and the like. Further, one of the harshest criticisms, that the President (and other officials) were lieing when, to justify the war in Iraq, they claimed Iraq had been seeking Uranium. Somehow, coincidentally maybe, the identity of the critics wife, a CIA agent, was disclosed, along with the fact that she is a high level covert CIA operative. Disclosed and published in the column of a widely read newspaper columnist. Was this an accident, or was it an outright warning to other critics that "this could happen to you"?

In March 2003 I was protesting the imminent war, as is my duty as a citizen to voice my feelings about government policy. During the protest I watched as a group of peaceful protesters, who had been marching down the sidewalk, slightly noisily, were arrested by the police. (here) I followed news of following protests, having to read about them at indymedia.org and other similar non-mainstream web sites. Not only did the mainstream news organizations largely ignore the protests, they were actively shut down by police agencies.

In April 2003 a couple protests happened in Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara CA. This is my neighborhood, in the heart of Silicon Valley. In one case President Bush arrived at Moffett Field and was whisked to a local Defense contractor to give a speech. People were prevented from departing on the light rail train along his route out of Moffett Field, and in the vicinity of the Defense contractor many (peaceful) protestors were arrested. On another day a large force of protestors converged on the Lockheed campus in Sunnyvale. They had cleared the protest, and their plans, with the police department, but on the day of the protest they were brutally rebuffed by a combination of private security and the Sunnyvale Police.

The following are a sampling of news articles

[Oct. 16, 2003; Salon; salon.com/news/feature/2003/10/16/secret_service/] Keeping dissent invisible When Bill Neel learned that President George W. Bush was making a Labor Day campaign visit to Pittsburgh last year to support local congressional candidates, the retired Pittsburgh steelworker decided that he would be on hand to protest the president's economic policies. Neel and his sister made a hand-lettered sign reading "The Bushes must love the poor -- they've made so many of us," and headed for a road where the motorcade would pass on the way from the airport to a Carpenters' Union training center.

He never got to display his sign for President Bush to see, though. As he stood among milling groups of Bush supporters, he was approached by a local police detective, who told him and his sister that because they were protesting, they had to move to a "free speech area," on orders of the U.S. Secret Service.

"He pointed out a relatively remote baseball diamond that was enclosed in a chain-link fence," Neel recalled in an interview with Salon. "I could see these people behind the fence, with their faces up against it, and their hands on the wire." (The ACLU posted photos of the demonstrators and supporters at that event on its Web site.) "It looked more like a concentration camp than a free speech area to me, so I said, 'I'm not going in there. I thought the whole country was a free speech area.'" The detective asked Neel, 66, to go to the area six or eight times, and when he politely refused, he handcuffed and arrested the retired steelworker on a charge of disorderly conduct. When Neel's sister argued against his arrest, she was cuffed and hauled off as well. The two spent the president's visit in a firehouse that was serving as Secret Service and police headquarters for the event.

The article goes on to say this act of fencing protestors off to a separate and distant area is not unique, for this administration, but that they instituted the policy even before the Sep 11, 2001 terror attacks. That the orders enforcing this banishing of protesters are made through the Secret Service. In a country which honors free speech, this policy is troubling, disturbing, and more.

The ACLU is involved and say there are two forms of segregating protestors:

1. The protestors are kept far away.
2. Anybody expressing any view are kept far away.

"We expect to see a lot more of this heading into a campaign season," says Chris Hansen, senior staff attorney at the ACLU

Hmm, and here I was hoping this is a Democracy I live in, where the Rule of Law is honored, and where elections are free and fair.

Michael Moore and his work

Michael Moore (http://www.michaelmoore.com/), the guy who conceived of and did Roger and Me, has gone on to become a liberal political commentator, actor, author, activist, and standup comic. His trademark tactic is intrusive butting into the affairs of the rich and mighty, in the guise of a normal guy with normal guy concerns.

Will they ever trust us again? Is a book reprinting the letters Michael Moore has received from thousands of U.S. soldiers and their families. They talk of rage and disgust, betrayal, hating the job they're doing, and more. The question Michael Moore asks through this book is, after this betrayal by the government, who will trust us?

Fahrenheit 9/11: The most controversial movie you could imagine being unveiled during a Presidential campaign. It recounts the fiasco of the last Presidential election, including discussing the highly probable outright fraud that disenfranchised tens of thousands of black Floridians in a flawed purging of "felons" from the voter rolls. It shows gutwrenching footage of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and then later more gutwrenching footage of our soldiers fighting in Iraq. He lays the case very well that the war in Iraq is a fallacy, that it is a huge distraction from the real "enemy" and more. See this movie!

Bowling For Columbine: Set in the time shortly after the Columbine "massacre" (in case you've forgotten, two high school kids went a little gun-nutty and shot up their high school killing a bunch of students), he uses the movie to explore the culture of gun violence in America.

For example, Littleton Colorado is also the home of a Lockheed Martin plant which makes guidance systems for nuclear missiles. Interesting contrast that is, to put side by side high school kids massacring each other next to the construction of nuclear missiles.

Most of the movie is spent considering why Americans kill each other at a higher rate than any other democracy in the world. Other countries have the same level of gun ownership, but not the same murder rate. Why?

Awful Truth-Complete Seasons 1 and 2: This is a TV series which Michael called The Peoples Republic Of Television. Through the TV show he covered various current events in his signature guerrilla video style, always staying close to humanity all the way. The result is hilarious and at the same time thought provoking.

In the beginning there was a free press. Well, not really, but it sounded good. By the end of the millennium five men who controlled the worlds media, and we ate their crap up with a spoon. Yet there was one man who operated outside their control. He and his crew were known as the Peoples Democratic Republic of Television (PDRTV). Their mission: to bring the people The Awful Truth.

For example, during the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, he hired a bunch of actors to dress up in Puritan costume and lead fake witch trials on the streets of Washington DC. In another show he interviewed a young man who was being denied a life-saving operation (pancreas transplant) by Humana, and otherwise he was at risk of dieing every day. In covering the interview he gave a brief overview of Humana's financial and profit status, executive compensation, bonus plans for employees that deny health coverage, and then proceeded to stage a fake funeral outside Humana's headquarters in Louisville, KY.

To honor the murder of Matthew Shepard, he got a Winnebego, painted it pink, called it the Sodomomobile, and with a crew of gay and lesbian cohorts took a road trip through states where "sodomy" is against the law aiming to break as many laws as they could in every one of the states.

Roger and Me: Michael Moore's seminal movie released in 1989, during the height of the Reaganomics disaster. The movie covers Michael's attempts to get an interview with Roger Smith, the Chairman of General Motors, to explain why they chose to close 11 assembly plants in the Flint Michigan area.

Stupid White Men Michael Moore's screed against "Thief-in-Chief" George Bush's power elite, hit No. 1 at Amazon.com within days of publication. Why? It's as fulminating and crammed with infuriating facts as any right-wing bestseller, as irreverent as The Onion, and as noisily entertaining as a wrestling smackdown. Moore offers a more interesting critique of the 2000 election than Ralph Nader's Crashing the Party (he argued with Nader, his old boss, who sacked him), and he's serious when he advocates ousting Bush. But Moore's rage is outrageous, couched in shameless gags and madcap comedy: "Old white men wielding martinis and wearing dickies have occupied our nation's capital.... Launch the SCUD missiles! Bring us the head of Antonin Scalia!... We are no longer [able] to hold free and fair elections. We need U.N. observers, U.N. troops." Moore's ideas range from on-the-money (Arafat should beat Sharon with Gandhi's nonviolent shame tactics) to over-the-top: blacks should put inflatable white dolls in their cars so racist cops will think they're chauffeurs; the ever-more-Republicanesque Democratic Party should be sued for fraud; "no contributions toward advancing our civilization ever came out of the South [except Faulkner, Hellman, and R.J. Reynolds]," because it's too hot to think straight there; Korean dictator Kim Jong-il "has got to broaden himself beyond porn and John Wayne" by watching better movies, like Dude, Where's My Car? (which contains "all you need to know about America"). Whatever your politics, Stupid White Men should make you blow your stack. --Tim Appelo

Dude, Where's My Country? The people of the United States, according to author and filmmaker Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Stupid White Men), have been hoodwinked. Tricked, he says, by Republican lawmakers and their wealthy corporate pals who use a combination of concocted bogeymen and lies to stay rich and in control. But while plenty of liberal scholars, entertainers, and pundits have made similar arguments in book form, Moore's Dude, Where's My Country? stands out for its thoroughly positive perspective. Granted, Moore is angry and has harsh words for George W. Bush and his fellow conservatives concerning the reasoning behind going to war in Iraq, the collapse of Enron and other companies, and the relationship between the Bushes, the Saudi Arabian government, and Osama bin Laden. But his book is intended to serve as a handbook for how people with liberal opinions (which is most of America, Moore contends, whether they call themselves "liberals" or not) can take back their country from the conservative forces in power. Moore uses his trademark brand of confrontational, exasperated humor skillfully as he offers a primer on how to change the worldview of one's annoying conservative blowhard brother-in-law, and he crafts a surprisingly thorough "Draft Oprah for President" movement. Refreshingly, Dude, Where's My Country? avoids being completely one-sided, offering up areas where Moore believes Republicans get it right as well as some cutting criticisms of his fellow lefties. Such allowances, brief though they may be, make one long for a political climate where the shouting polemicists on both sides would see a few more shades of gray. Dude, Where's My Country? is a little bit scattered, as Moore tries to cram opinions on Iraq, tax cuts, corporate welfare, Wesley Clark, and the Patriot Act into one slim volume--and the penchant to go for a laugh sometimes gets in the way of clear arguments. But such variety also gives the reader more Moore, providing a broader range of his bewildered, enraged, yet stalwartly upbeat point of view. --John Moe

Downsize This! Who says the left wing doesn't have a sense of humor? Maybe it doesn't, but documentarian Michael Moore sure does--Exhibit A was Roger & Me; B was the ill-fated TV Nation; and C is 1997's print skirmish Downsize This! Moore's politics are rabidly liberal, populist, and anti-big business--about what you'd expect from the former editor of Mother Jones. While this restricts his audience to Americans on the left side of the aisle, for them Downsize This! will be a chance to point and laugh hysterically (if ruefully) at the clique of rich white guys who run everything. Moore is at his best as a prankster, whether it's trying to see if Pat Buchanan will take a campaign donation from the John Wayne Gacy Fan Club (yes) or whether he can have Bob Dornan committed to an insane asylum based on his bizarre behavior (no, but it was close). Moore is one of our sharpest satirists, and Downsize This! makes one wish he would write a "Sorry State of the Union" every year. But only if it doesn't cut into his moviemaking--that's too big a price to pay. --Michael Gerber

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