William Rivers Pitt | 25.06.2004 08:52

"The light at the end of the tunnel could be the bulb in a film projector."
- Jeanette Castillo

Thank You, Michael Moore
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 25 June 2004

"The light at the end of the tunnel could be the bulb in a film projector."
- Jeanette Castillo
Screens in Bartlett, Chattanooga, Jackson, Knoxville and Memphis, Tennessee will be showing it. Screens in Layton and West Jordan, Utah will be showing it. If you find yourself in Leawood, Merriam, Shawnee or Wichita, Kansas, you can see it. The same goes for Centerville, Fairfax and Abington, Virginia. If you happen to be in Akron, Bexley, Dublin or Elyria, Ohio, you're all set. Hoover, Montgomery and Mobile, Alabama will not be left out.

Laramie, Wyoming? It's there. Bozeman, Montana? Indeed. Should you call home Grand Island, Lincoln or Omaha, Nebraska, you have not been forgotten. The largest mall in the country, the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, will have it in its theater. If you are a soldier at Camp Lejune or Fort Bragg, about to be shipped to Iraq, you can see it in nearby Fayetteville, North Carolina.

These towns, large and small, along with towns large and small from sea to shining sea and straight through the American heartland, will begin screening Michael Moore's documentary, 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' beginning at 12:01a.m. Friday morning, the 25th of June, 2004. For the majority of people who will see this movie, in those towns large and small, the experience will be nothing short of a mind-bomb.

The Who once sang about how the hypnotized never lie, but as we have seen, people hypnotized by television and deliberately enforced fear can certainly support a war, and a President, which are fundamentally at odds with basic American decency. In fact, people hypnotized by television and deliberately enforced fear will feed themselves into the meat grinder with "God Bless America" on their lips.

Michael Moore's film will snap that hypnosis, but good. Those Americans who believed what their President told them because they saw it on the TV will, after less than two hours in their local theater, look at both their television and their President with doubt and loathing when they walk from the darkness into the bright light of day. There are millions of Americans who believed what they were told - about 9/11, about Iraq, about George W. Bush himself - who will come into that bright light with the realization that they have been lied to.

Speaking personally, none of the data in this film surprised me. Having spent every day of the last three years working to expose as many Americans as possible to the truth of the man they call President, Mr. Moore was unlikely to explode any shells across my bow. The connections between Bush, the Saudis, the Carlyle Group and the 9/11 attacks were there. The connections between Cheney and Halliburton were there. The connections between Enron, Unocal, natural gas pipelines, the war in Afghanistan and a little-known country called Turkmenistan were there. I enjoyed the fact that Moore showed off unredacted copies of Bush's military service record, allowing us to see the parts of those documents which had been blacked out. I found no fact, no assertion in this film to question or doubt. I have done my homework, and as was made painfully clear, Michael Moore did his.

Most Americans don't know about this stuff, and seeing it fully documented and meticulously researched on the big screen will be, to say the least, revelatory. Yes, Virginia, there are billions of dollars to be made off this Iraq war for Bush's friends. The second door on the left is the recruiting office. Sign on the line that is dotted, and be the first kid on your block to die for the benefit of Carlyle's stock options. Be sure to save your pennies beforehand, however, because the Army will dock your pay for the days you are dead. It's policy, you see.

Mr. Moore put two daggers into me with this film, the first of which had to do with American soldiers. Trooper after trooper spoke frankly for Moore's camera, condemning both the war and the people who thrust them into it. Several scenes graphically explained what happens to a soldier's body when it is caught in an explosion. The result is ruinous, and the cries of the wounded and the dying will ring in my ears forever.

The most wrenching scenes in the film center around a woman named Lila, who loves her country, loves her flag, and above all loves her children whom she actively persuaded to join the armed services. We learn that Lila has a son in Iraq, and because of that, she despises those protesting the invasion. We find out later that her son was killed in Karbala on April 2nd, when his Blackhawk helicopter was shot down. We watch her read her son's last letter home, in which he rages against Bush and the war. We last see Lila standing at the gates of the White House, tears boiling from her eyes, as she discovers her true enemy, the one who took her baby from her.

The other dagger Moore put into me came during his montage of the media coverage of the war. Journalist after journalist is shown rhapsodizing Bush, his administration and the war. Each and every one of them carried forth that which we now know to be bald-faced lies: That Iraq had WMDs, that Iraq was a threat, that we had to go, and that everything is fine. It was a slideshow of the nonsense Americans have been spoon-fed for far too long.

If you doubt this, Sidney Blumenthal's aggressive and effective actual journalism, as found in his most recent report titled 'Reality is Unraveling for Bush,' should help you along. "Most of the media was on the bandwagon or intimidated," writes Blumenthal. "Cheney himself called the president of the corporation that owned one of the networks to complain about an errant commentator. Political aides directed by Karl Rove ceaselessly called editors and producers with veiled threats about access that was not granted in any case. The press would not bite the hand that would not feed it."

With a single stroke, Michael Moore has undone three years of poor, slanted, biased, factually bereft, compromised television journalism. This, in the end, is the final greatness of 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' Not only will Americans get a sense of the depth of the deception they have endured, but 'journalists' all across the country will be forced to endure the humiliation they so richly deserve.

I was privileged to see this film in the company of three groups - Military Families Speak Out, September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and Veterans for Peace - which have stood against this disastrous war from day one. Many in the theater had family in Iraq, or had lost family in Iraq, or had lost family on 9/11 and seen their beloved dead used as an excuse for unwarranted war, and there was not a dry eye in the house.

'Fahrenheit 9/11' is not a victory for anyone. We the People should have known better, We the People should have been given the facts before sending 851 of our children to die. We the People have been betrayed, by our leaders and by a media that profited, and profits still, from the daily sale of lies. This film drove that horrid fact home with a mallet, and it hurt.

I was reminded, as I filed out with this company of heroes, of a portion of Shakespeare's rendition of Henry's speech before Agincourt:

He that outlives this day and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Many of us were not hypnotized. Millions of us took to the streets in this country and around the world, to try and stop this madness before it was unleashed. The people in that theater with me had done this, had never stopped doing this, though their President and their media named them traitor. They were right. They were right. They were right.

Michael Moore has unleashed a wolf within Mr. Bush's fences. There is no getting around it. Perhaps, now that it is far too late, we as a nation will wake up. On the day of that awakening, those of us who never stopped standing, never stopped marching, learned to live without sleep, learned to live in a nation that scorned truth for televised fantasy, those patriots I was with tonight in that theater can pause for breath. We can sit upon the grass on a bright day, strip our sleeves, and show our scars.

The world according to Bush 27.06.2004 09:36 The world according to Bush Seen on TV in Europe, actually on theaters, and soon available on DVD (1st July 2004): THE WORLD ACCORDING TO BUSH A film by William Karel in collaboration with Eric Laurent Eight years apart, George Bush and his son, George W. Bush, have succeeded each other at the head of the world's most powerful nation. An unprecedented phenomenon in American history. The key events of the last twelve years have taken place during their terms in office: the collapse of the Soviet empire and the Communist bloc, the first Gulf War, the events of September 11, the globalisation of terrorism and the new conflict with Baghdad. Who are the Bushes? Apparently, the "quiet dynasty" of modern America. But in reality a "dynasty" whose inconceivable family secrets are painstakingly concealed. The grandfather of the current President, Prescott Bush, made his fortune by managing Nazi companies after Hitler seized power. In 1942, his companies were confiscated for collaboration with the enemy. George Bush Senior, Ronald Reagan's Vice-President and then President from 1988 to 1992, armed and financed Saddam Hussein. He approved the shipping of germ warfare strains to Iraq, thus enabling the country to launch a chemical attack against Iranian troops and the Kurdish population. This film aims to pass through the looking glass and to show how the Bushes, father and son, have not only dined with the devil but have often invited themselves to his table. The bin Ladens and the Bushes have always been business partners and the family of the future terrorist chief indirectly financed George W. Bush's political career. This unnatural alliance has continued since the September 11 attacks: Bush Senior is a top official in one of the biggest private investment funds in the USA, Carlyle, a group that has invested heavily in the arms industry: the Bradley tanks and the missiles used in the latest war against Iraq are made by firms controlled by Carlyle... and the bin Ladens. For the latter are Bush's associates within this investment fund. "The World According to Bush" is based on fully verified facts and eyewitness accounts. It offers a disturbing and striking portrait of the exercise of power at the head of the world's leading democracy, as well as of the unacceptable alliances that have been forged and that remain painstakingly concealed. The Bushes' feelings of total impunity have attained their peak during the professional career and the political ascension of George W. Bush. His decision to attack Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime already appears as one of the most fascinating historical and political conundrums for historians to ponder over in the coming years. No thriller or political fiction screenplay could have imagined the workings of such an intricate plot. Unfortunately, its actors are not fictional characters but, on the contrary, a man and a team who hold the fate of the world in their hands. For the first time in the political history of the USA, a small group of people, working together for thirty years, has more or less taken over American foreign policy and totally overhauled it, silencing all opposition. Behind the proclaimed global strategy, we find not only considerable economic interests but also a possibly more disturbing aspect, a religious project that George W. Bush identifies with completely, initiated by extremists who are part of the President's direct entourage. Religion has taken on an all-important role since his arrival at the White House. Never before in the history of the world's democracies have one man and his team acted with such arrogance and impunity, defying international law and creating an unprecedented grouping of interests: the project blends politics and personal interests in an atmosphere of total cynicism. The latest war against Iraq, with its totally unforeseeable consequences, hides another danger, that of seeing America launch further "civilizing" operations of a similar type, imposed by force, fired by ideas that are at best naïve and at worst totally hypocritical, calculated over a dangerously short term. With, opposite Washington, the rest of the world confined to the part of a mere extra... ---------- The documentary exclusively includes testimonies by several figures of the CIA, journalists and politicians, who have been ruled out due to their discomfort with the US policies particularly with regard to the Iraq invasion. Chief among those figures are former CIA agent Robert Steel, writer Norman Mailer, former US President Ronald Reagan's advisor Michael Liden, head of Public Integration Center Char Louis, Washington Post journalist Jim Hogland, Robert Baer, Richard Perle, Frank Carlucci (Carlyle Group), ... The director emphasizes that "the history of democracies has not witnessed a President and his team dealing with such arrogance as did Bush, as he lacks consciousness and despises international legitimacy despite an unprecedented link of personal interests." In his testimony, Stanley Hoffman, a Harvard University professor, underlines that the US hawks led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Undersecretary Paul Wolfwitz, vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Department retiree Richard Perle "have made use of September 11 events (gift of heavens) to implement their strategy that is based on re-drawing the Middle East map under the slogan of fighting terrorism." The director shows, through official testimonies, how the US neo-conservatives have even linked their strategy to ousting the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime as being responsible for September attacks and in possession of mass destruction weapons that threaten the safety and security of the US and the whole world. The documentary also includes testimonies for (retired) David Kay, senior U.S. inspector for Iraqi weapons and Hans Blix, ex-head of the international inspectors. The director has managed to obtain the testimony of David Ferron; the only person from the current US Administration who approved to give testimony in the documentary. David Ferron, writer of Bush's speeches, is known for devising the "Axis of Evil" term. Karel revealed that he has attempted for over 20 times to meet Wolfwitz but the latter refused to give any statements. As for Dick Cheney, Karel underlined, nobody allowed him even to approach any of his acquaintances. ---------- Note: As bonus, the DVD will include the full speech of Senator Robert Byrd. AmigaPhil e-mail:: AmigaPhil@ping.be Homepage:: AmigaPhil@ping.be