Funferal

Turning up the heat – Fahrenheit 9/11

Alternet has a transcript from a speech Michael Moore gave in Boston this week – not an official convention event, but run by the ‘Campaign for America’s Future’ – and it’s certainly a stirring piece.
Similarly, I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night – I hadn’t managed to catch it earlier – and if you haven’t seen it yet, make sure you do. It’s a powerful piece of cinema, with Moore demonstrating his mastery of his craft. And even though I’m aware of much of the fisking of the movie – the questions regarding when exactly the Bin Ladins/Ladens were allowed leave the United States, for example – you can’t help but be moved by the overall message.
Overall, the strength of the movie’s message lie, I think, not in questions of international geopolitics, or even in tracing corporate linkages. Like Roger and Me my strongest memories, and the pieces that struck me most deeply, are class-driven. Students, in a school hall (I presume), talking about how they would like to be able to go to college, to do all the things young people can do, but that the military is their only possible route. Recruiters cynically implying that the Marines are responsible for Shaggy’s success in the music business. A mother talking about encouraging her children to join the military, in order to have the things (see the world!, get an education!) that she just can’t give them.
The film upset me, and also made me profoundly angry. As a non-American, it’s a strange film to see in America. Here especially, it’s seen as an indictment of the Bush regime – and it certainly is intended, at least in part, to be that – but the class-analysis makes it for me even more strongly an indictment of the naked capitalism so closely associated with America. I was reminded once again of attempts to draw back the free third level education available in Ireland – and ever more strongly convinced of the need to defend these small statements of the entitlement to equity, to opportunity.
Further, while there are some heart-breaking scenes of the humiliation and pain suffered by Iraqis, the concentration on the US military, and US troops – however understandable, given Moore’s situation and his primary audience – draws attention, once again, to the self-absorbed nature of political debate in the United States.
While Moore may dedicate his movie, in part, to the ‘countless thousands’ who have died as a result of the actions of troops, they fade into the background, undifferentiated, compared to the personalised portraits of individual Americans carefully sketched by Moore. I ached to see a portrait of an Iraqi, as more than a crying woman responding to the actions of Americans. However much the art of propaganda demands that one plays to the existing deep-seated concerns and prejudices of the audience – and a militarised culture is central to US life – I wondered what a sympathetic, an empathetic, portrait of an Iraqi woman or family – given a name, an identity – would do to the audience. Cut out that stuff about the Saudis – with a montage that seemed to play on a presumed prejudice against swarthy men in strange headgear – and give us two portraits. An American woman, caught in a system that requires her to feed her children to the military machine in order to give them a chance of life, and an Iraqi, caught in another system and culture.
But this is not that movie, and it is nonetheless powerful. Moore uses his exploration of the disparities of race and class to end by musing on the willingness of those so often chewed up and spat out by the US system to be the first to defend that system with their bodies. Although Moore returns to Bush, talking of the need therefore not to unnecessarily place them in harm’s way, how could one miss the hint that perhaps they deserve a little bit more from the country.
And this is where Moore’s speech comes in. Here, addressing a progressive audience, he lays out his stall more fully. Near the end he addresses Kerry (despite his physical absence), saying

Speak out about health care in the right way. Don’t put ads on TV that say we will provide health care for nearly all Americans. Don’t do that. Stand up for something. Don’t be afraid. Don’t try to be the hamburger version of the Republican Party.

Moore’s fight is the good fight, but he and we must not settle for too little.