Shots Across The Bow

Michael Moore: The Final Post

I followed Mike's request yesterday and downloaded Farenheit 911 over Kazaa, and I watched it.

All of it.

And after watching it, I have mixed feelings.

I'm proud to live in a country where a man can make a movie like this and not wind up in a gulag, or live in fear of a midnight knock on the door, followed by torture and murder. I'm proud that, all protests from liberal democrats aside, freedom of speech still rules in America, that Michael Moore, can stand up and spout his lies and distortions, and not only remian a free man, but make a very nice living doing so. It's almost oxymoronic; the very fact that Moore could make Farenheit 911 discredits one of Moore's central theses, that we no longer live in a free society.

On the other hand, I'm not so proud that thousands of intelligent people are so blinded by partisanship that they can't see the lies in this movie. That so many Americans can be taken in by this fraud pretending to be a patriot. It bothers me that so many who used to excoriate Rush and the Dittoheads now plunge lemming-like over the same cliffs of insanity following another ideologue. It worries me that the country is now facing a divide just as deep, just as bitter, and seemingly just as hardened as the one which resulted in the War Between the States.

Could Farenheit 911 be the Uncle Tom's Cabin of our time?

Like F911, Uncle Tom's Cabin was a distorted, biased version of the truth, yet its imagery was powerful, and stirred strong emotions in those who believed in its message, strong enough to spur them into a bloody war. Upon meeting Stowe, Lincoln is said to have remarked, "So, you're the little lady who started the war."

I wonder if anyone will be saying the same to Michael Moore.

Of course, another civil war is not in the cards; the divide in this case is cultural, not regional. But I wonder if a cultural war wouldn't be even more damaging, particularly now.

Posted by Rich at August 2, 2004 5:26 PM | TrackBack