Moore and More is Needed; What to Do, What to Read AFTER You've Seen the Movie Fahrenheit 9/11
By David Swanson
Fahrenheit 9-11 reminds me of Howard Dean. Both were wildly promoted by the media in a manner not carefully thought through by media bigwigs, and then both were savaged by the media just before opening day.
The size of the audiences seeing this movie was guaranteed by the media hype, and the notion that the audiences consist mainly of liberal activists is disproved by the size of them. More people have already seen this movie than subscribe to progressive magazines or participate in political primary MeetUps. The question is what will happen in the heads of people who had never heard any of this stuff before.
What if you had never been told that U.S. soldiers come from poor families, that U.S. presidents launch wars for corporate profits, or that governments use fear to manipulate people? Will two hours be enough to get you thinking like this movie? Or will you have to go back and read all the books that I had to read before I thought this way? Will your reaction be a troubled uncertainty that you are able to maintain or will you be immediately converted? Or will you steadfastly resist the notion that your television has been lying to you all of these years? "They wouldn't lie to me," sings Willie Nelson. "Not on my own damn TV."
One Republican who was taken to see Fahrenheit by a friend told me she had never known any of these things before, especially that Bush had connections to the Bin Ladens. She clearly was unsure whether to believe it all. And in the face of it she was still able to think of Bush as a good president. But she was overflowing with questions.
A Republican Floridian quoted by the New York Times said: "Oh my goodness, I cried. I'm still trying to process everything. It really makes me question what I feel about the president. I'm still going to respect him as our president, but it makes me question his motives. Of course, I think that's the whole point of the film, to question his motives. But after watching it, I do question my loyalty to the president. And that's scary for me."
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, one viewer "said he was an independent who had not decided how to vote in November. He said, however, that a section of the film showing U.S. troops in Iraq speaking out against the war had a strong effect on him.
'That really hit me,' he said. 'That did tilt me toward the Democrats.'"
According to every corporate newspaper I've seen, the fact that people could be so shocked by the revelation of such recent and important events indicated absolutely nothing about the performance of the media worth commenting on.
Where I saw the movie on Saturday in D.C., the audience cheered and laughed at various points, but most people walked out looking glum and not talking to each other, at least not at first. My own reaction was complete agreement with the movie
