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America is Alive and Well

(Thanks to Michael Moore.)

by Becky Burgwin

 OpEdNews.com

I have been anticipating the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 like a kid waiting for Christmas. Yesterday I went to buy tickets for the 7:00 PM show at 11:00 AM and there was already a line. Amazingly enough, the theater here in Rehoboth Beach was showing it but only because the director of the Rehoboth Film Festival worked with them. It was one of only 2 theaters in the state of Delaware that had it last night.

My sister and her partner decided not to join us because they read a review that said it was just a propaganda film designed to make the Republicans look bad. Ya think? I tried to tell her that that review was written by people who not only don’t want you two to get married but would really like to see your asses in jail. But no luck.

It was all very exciting. Lines around the block…news cameras interviewing people. Even for someone who was in the thick of things in the 60’s, it felt powerful and revolutionary.

I was looking forward to scenes of Bush and his buddies being morons, which I can’t seem to get enough of these days, so the opening scene where the Wolfowitz is licking his comb and putting spit in his hair was perfect.

Moore, as always, came through with the laughs. There were lots of great gags like showing Sgt. Joe Friday interrogating suspects while talking about the Bin Ladens being escorted out of the country…no questions asked. There were some very funny ads for products people bought in response to the fear that was being pedaled by our government in order to justify their invasion of Iraq, a country that has never done anything to hurt our country or anyone in it. And reading the Patriot Act to congress from the speaker of an ice-cream truck was hysterical.

I pretty much already knew everything that the movie talked about except I had no idea that James Baker's law firm represented the Saudi's when they were sued by the 9/11 family members. That’s just astounding. And the close-up footage of Bush's face in the classroom on the morning of 9/11 during the 8 minutes that he knew the country was under attack but just sat there reading to the kids was genius, not only from not only a voyeuristic standpoint but also a cinematic one.

The scenes of African American congressmen and women appealing to the senate on behalf of their constituents, who were not allowed to vote in the Florida election was also astonishing. I had no idea that they went on, one after the other, while needing only one senatorial vote to make it official and not only not getting it, but being booed.

But mostly I just cried. Actually, and for some inexplicable reason, I was caught off-guard by how sad the movie was. I don't know why it never occurred to me that the movie was going to be sad, really, really sad. We have a very close friend who’s over there and we know that the boy who left in January will not be the boy who comes back next summer. But the pain of losing a child/ husband/ wife/parent for this the most unworthy of causes is unfathomable.

As unreal as they may have been, I was shattered by the scenes of Iraqis enjoying life before the US invasion. I have written many articles ranting and raving about what we have done to Iraqi citizens and never even come close to feeling the full impact of it. And the door-to-door scenes in Baghdad were horrifying and evoked images of the Nazis rounding up the Jews. I wonder if there’s an Iraqi family hiding in the wall of someone’s house waiting for it to end.

The magnitude of the tragedy that we as a country have perpetrated upon these people will never end. It is something that they will never ever forget and neither should we. I only hope that someday the men who have lined their pockets with the booty that prompted them to do this unspeakable thing, will feel the shame that is their due.

I had time alone after the movie and I sat down to write and, for the first time in a year and a half, I found myself at a loss for words. What was there was fear and the feeling that we really are in the Twilight Zone. And the fact that these guys are still running neck and neck with Kerry is just horrifying.

This morning, though, I feel hope and joy. Hope that, at the very least, our first amendment rights are alive and well. No. It’s more than that. OUR COUNTRY IS ALIVE AND WELL. A country founded by people who went to very great lengths to make sure that fear and oppression by its government could never get out of hand…who authored a document that left no stone unturned in its aim to make sure this never happened, lives on with defiance.

I also felt joyful that we have people like Michael Moore who work like dogs to get this important information out to all Americans and willingly puts themselves in the path of an oil hungry juggernaut that blithely bombs homes, schools, hospitals, and museums and sends our poorest children to die, only to put more money in their pockets. Exactly what is it that a man can buy with 100 million dollars that he can’t buy with 50?

I hope that Moore will go into the history books along with other American heroes like Patrick Henry and Thomas Paine and that everybody who sees the movie this weekend will look for a Move On House Party near them on Monday night and join forces with what I hope will be a stampede of pissed off Americans trying to get their country back. Because I, like Michael Moore, and thousands upon thousands of disheartened Americans, love my country with a fervor that will never even be imagined by these criminals. And love conquers fear every time.

Ms. Burgwin’s writings have appeared in Time, Newsweek, New York Magazine, Counterpunch, Alternet and OpEdNews as well as several other online Op Ed sites. She is on the Board of Aid Afghanistan and one of the contributors to the Peace Project in Assisi, Italy. Send questions, comments, and critiques to rburgwin@aol.com.