O.K... my take...
I have been very quiet during all this for a reason.
I saw the movie, opening night. I was very excited, for as many of you know (even if you disagree with my political views) I keep up with current affairs. I have the sources to back up a lot of what I already knew he would talk about..so I was excited to see all the little "Moore antics," and a both compelling yet comical interpretation of our current world affairs. Then...I planned on logging on Saturday and giving a steller review of the most entertaining movie of the year. I didn't get what I was looking for.
This film was not Moore's usual work. It was not the usual "docu-comedy" that he puts out. I get a kick out of Moores usual works, but I also can understand why many people don't get a kick out of these same works. Moore's usual stuff is akin to the internet troll who comes on to make a point while starting trouble....it may be funny, but clearly the goal is to piss off half the public. I understand why many of you don't like his earlier works just as much as I understand why one would like them (as I do). However...Farenhiet 9/11 is nothing like anyhting he has done before.
Out of the entire 2 hour film, there was maybe 10 or 15 minutes of "Moore antic." The rest was cold hard documentary....facts, footage, and sources, presented with about as much Bias as any normal documentary would have. Yes...Moore had a clear thesis, so naturally this is his point of view, and the presentation of the facts are in support of that thesis, as one should expect in any documentary. However...this film was a very serious film. It is a film that all people should see, regardless of political beliefs.
This movie illustrated what I knew already in a very compelling manner. It is easy to read and theorize from a distance, as we all are on this forum. Yet, you can't watch the film without having being brought closer to the issues at at hand.
My friend since the 7th grade, who is standing up in my wedding if he can get leave, is in Bagdad right now. I touched hands (on the training floor) with his unit, and another ranger unit that accompanies him. I have other friends and family that are over their right now. This movie humanized these men. Young men and some women, most of them 17 years old to 30, who are fighting for your right to be on your computer and opinionize right now. Men and women who just want to help us, protect us, and keep us from harms way. Men and women who will die for us. And....all they ask for in return is a little respect, and they ask that our leaders don't send them into harms way for a cause that is unjust. Our country is failing these men and women.
Yet, the death-toll for our soldiers rise each day. The injury toll, that people don't realize, is over 5,000. Our soldiers, 5,000 of them with missing limbs, damaged senses, or brain damage, or whatever. Yea..."whatever"....and meanwhile the budget for military and VA hospitals has since been cut, among other things. How many of our soliders do we plan to leave behind this time around?
The death toll on Iraqi citizens rise each day as well. Many of the Iraqi's dying are women, children, and husbands, and fathers... not "terrorists." I know people who have had to watch their friends die. I know people who have killed others; and not just "terrorists", but kids, or regular citizens, who were in the wrong damn place at the wrong time. Who will right that wrong? Who fill fight that "terror?"
And all for what? The FACT is that these evils have been allowed because a few jerks want to make some bucks, and because too many of YOU (as in, voters) are too goddam moronic to realize that this is what is happening. That FACT is, our administration, and the people who enable them, have allowed pure evil to occur for the almighty dollar.
By the time I reached the parking lot, I had tears rolling down my face. The thought of all those people, thousands of people, both americans and non-americans, who's lives have been ruined so a small few could make another few million. The thought of my friends who are over there...and who trusted us, and the poeple in charge. It isn't f**king fair, or right.
Farenhiet 9/11 brings all this stuff to the screen; if you consider yourself human, you cannot emotionally or mentally seperate yourself from what has been occuring...and what is occuring today.
Now...why haven't I posted this before? I do not have the emotional tolerance, at this point, to argue my points with the many of you who cannot step outside of your idealectic boxes, who refuse to see the movie because "Michael Moore is a (fill in blank here)!," or who only have enough acumen to read a bunch of negative reviews on a film to justify your close-minded, outright false accusations and ideas. Unlike many of you, this issue is closer to me then you could ever know. Sure...you all are entitled to your opinions, as it is a free country, but I am entitled to not have to put up with them, or deal with them for that matter.
I am sure many of you, no matter what anyone says, will continue to resort to illogic, and character assasination to support your assertions. I just hope you understand why I won't be posting on this topic again...as I have run out of tolerance for it. I hope you watch the film eventually, regardless of what you think of Moores past works, behaviors, or personality. But, more importantly, I hope that you step back and realize what we've done as a country to innocent people, and what we have done to our soldiers who trust us and depend on us as much as we on them. I hope you realize, come election time, what we have allowed some of our decision makers to do to us, and to our men and women earning their freedoms by putting their lives on the line. I hope that many of you, on this board and elsewhere, will learn to step out of your idealectic box (whether "liberal" or "conservative"), and start supporting decisions that are truely best for our great nation.
Well, one can only hope, anyways....
Paul Janulis