In Ray Bradbury’s 1953 story, Fahrenheit 451, the lead character, Guy Montag, a fireman, questions his job - which is burning down houses found to have books - after observing some people’s willingness to go down in flames rather than live without their books.

Filmmaker Michael Moore is hoping to get Americans asking questions, too, about their patriotism and about what it means to be patriotic in the first place.

His new film, Fahrenheit 9/11, follows hits like Roger & Me in 1989, about how General Motors’ downsizing brought his hometown of Flint, Michigan to its knees, and his 2002 release, Bowling for Columbine, which asked, 'Are we a nation of gun nuts, or are we just nuts?'

In his newest work, Moore, using footage of the commander-in-chief that most Americans would otherwise never have seen, argues that if anyone is really nuts, it is President George W. Bush. The film, produced in part by Miramax Films (whose parent, The Walt Disney Company, is still seething at what it got itself into), barely made it to mainstream theaters. That’s probably because one scene after another depicts the president as a bumbling fool, unable to answer questions clearly or with any genuine seriousness. In one telling scene, on a golf course, Bush answers an unseen reporter’s question concerning terrorism with characteristic aplomb, and then switches gears - 'Now, watch this golf swing.' The film is propaganda, something the filmmaker isn’t shy about admitting. In interviews he calls 'Fahrenheit 9/11' an opinion piece, an effort to help the crucial task of getting Bush out of the White House before he does more damage to a world that sees the United States in increasingly hostile and morbid terms.

That isn’t to say all the world, however.

Moore’s film suggests that no other country enjoys chummier relations with the United States than Saudi Arabia, whose native son, Osama bin Laden, the U.S. government accuses of having masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The film argues that among the president’s favorite people - if only because they own a sizable chunk of the United States - are the bin Ladens themselves.

Propaganda can amount to so much rumor, but it can also use accurate information to damage a person, an institution or a cause.

Moore finds all three in his cross-hairs, with Bush playing himself, Big Business starring as the institution, and both uniting in the cause of keeping enough Americans poor and in the dark about their government.

Moore again directs his camera at Flint, a once-bustling city, following around a mother who gets teary-eyed with pride when talking about her son in the military, and angry at those who protest U.S. military involvement overseas.

The scene foreshadows a later interview Moore has with the same woman when things don’t turn out as planned.

The filmmaker also tails two white military recruiters, decked out in shiny, blue uniforms, their buttons gleaming in the sunlight, as they prowl a Flint shopping area’s parking lot in search of their next prey.

But, Moore points out, they don’t go to the nice mall in the suburbs, going instead to the one where poor, mostly black, shoppers are.

One prospect tells them he’d rather go into the music business.

'I’m sure you know who Shaggy is, right?' one of the recruiters tells the man, referring to the Jamaican-born singer. 'How about a former Marine?'

The film shows a lot of footage of Flint, its boarded-up houses and abandoned structures. At night, the streets are dark and depressing. But even during the day, with the sun shining down on these mostly black youth, there is the sense that their poverty-driven considerations about joining the military, partly to escape circumstances brought on them by the decisions of faraway CEOs, won’t make things any better.

After all, they live in neighborhoods resembling post-war Iraq’s, and statistics show their chances of living very long are slimmer than most. If they go to Iraq, they might come back in body bags whose arrival we won’t even be allowed to witness.

In the end, that is what this film is about: powerful people in government profiting at the expense of poor Americans, black, white, or whatever. War mongering and downsizing isn’t the American way, the film seems to say. The sun, after all, might be shining on these youth today - but ain’t no sunshine when they’re gone, one way or the other.



--Reposted with permission from The Michigan Citizen. All rights reserved.



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