If you can stand another entry about Fahrenheit 911...

[firecat]

...my sweetie jwermont just forwarded me this excellent critique of the movie by Robert Jensen, professor of journalism at the University of Texas: "Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire".

Comments

hm

[mamatiger.livejournal.com]

Interesting take. Fascinating to see him at one point raise the question of racism in the movie, and then to later say "To raise questions about U.S. policy in the Middle East without addressing the role of Israel as a U.S. proxy is, to say the least, a significant omission. It's unclear whether Moore actually backs Israeli crimes and U.S. support for them, or simply doesn't understand the issue." The guy seems to be a hard-left socialist anti-Zionist. brr.

Here's a page with a point by point examination of 56 deceits in Moore's movie -- http://davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm -- which also includes links to Moore's rebuttal, if any, of these criticisms.

Never ceases to amaze me just how bad you can make someone look by quoting them out of context. (Why just the other day for example Atrios said "I have no idea what the truth is and don't particularly care.")

Re: hm

[firecat]

I'm not sure that you have to be "hard left" to think that Israel has committed war crimes or that the U.S. looks the other way while they do. But maybe I'm wrong.

Yep, I don't talk to reporters for that very reason (quotes out of context). I talked to one reporter once about getting romantically involved with people on-line. She was a friend of a friend and quite sympathetic (not out to get me) and interested in writing a good article. But she still quoted me out of context in embarrassing ways.

I liked the rebuttal articles for Bowling for Columbine, but for some reason I can't work up enthusiasm for the rebuttal articles for F911. But yep, Moore lies and distorts the truth freely and stages events that put people in the position "damned if they do and damned if they don't." I agree with the broad strokes of his politics, and find it interesting to see how he'll present things, and find it very gratifying that he gets people talking about stuff.