Political: Fahrenehit 9/11
Aug. 2nd, 2004 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hkellickSo I finally saw "Fahrenheit 9/11". I left... very angry.
Kristen and I have probably been talking politics nonstop since the DNC. We've discussed Kerry and Bush, we've discussed Iraq, we've discussed Israel and Palestine.
In alot of ways, how I feel about alot of issues sort of clicked into place in the middle of the movie and I left feeling really angry, really upset and ready to argue with Kristen about statements she'd made over the last week.
I know that some of you think that Michael Moore is just opinionated tripe (*eyes![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xb95*) and I will agree that I don't agree with every one of his points, with every way he connected the dots. But I don't think Mr. Moore is tripe at all. I think he's biased, but I think MOST of his points are very fair.
I have been against George W. Bush from Day 1, increasingly so as time has passed. I'll strongly argue against any conservative that that man has done more to harm this country than, in any way, to make it better. He's stripped us, the American people, of our rights, of our liberty and of our dignity. He's helped to turn us from otherwise normal people into little children, afraid of every sound, believing in every bullshit story we've heard. We're still victim to it. Just this morning, Kristen sends me an email that she's uncomfortable because now they're saying that THE TERRORISTS (Dun dun dun) are going to attack New York, DC or Newark (Dun dun dun). They don't know when, but they've got GOOD INTELLIGENCE that they plan to do this.. sometimes.. eventually.. probably.
You'll excuse me, but I'm sick of my strings being pulled. I don't buy it, Chicken Little. Do you know what Homeland Security has become? A joke. They're the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Oh no!
What 9/11 did to us is it forced us to the realization that terrorists could do the unthinkable.. on American soil. And now our imaginations have become our worst enemies. You know, says we... 9/11 was bad.. but a Nuclear bomb would be worse. You know, we say, we live near a Nuclear Power Plant. Are we in danger? You know, we say, we live near a chemical plant. We must be in danger too. You know, we say, there's been a bunch of random shootings in Washington. Maybe THAT'S the Terrorists too! Oh no! White powder in an envelope! I'm doooooomed!
My own mother, usually fairly well-thought out, actually thought Buffalo might be a good target because of Niagara Falls and the Power Plant.
Um. No.
You are in far more danger from cancer from cigarettes, from a drive by shooting, from a drunk driving accident than that THE TERRORISTS (dun dun dun) will actually come for you/your city.
I despise Herr Bush for the way he's lied to this county.. because as we were freaking out over all the What Ifs.. he actually managed to convince a pretty good portion of this country that IRAQ.. otherwise minding their business and not doing anything except for occasionally rattling the old saber... was involved with 9/11... and managed to switch, in our minds, Osama's face with Saddam's.
You know.. this kills me. SOME of you (and you know who you are) HATE Bill Clinton because Bill Clinton LIED to you. Because he told a lie and was immoral and we can't have a leader like that. But you SAME PEOPLE have no problem with George Bush lying to you and then letting.. what's the current count? EDIT:600 900 young men and women? And that's just the Americans.
Do you know the most ugly/moving part of the film. It's the part all you little warhawks out there want to forget. The cost of war. It's seeing the blood and the guts. It's seeing teenagers with half their faces melted off. It's seeing men frantically searching for survivors and finding a torso.. and then a head. And it's seeing an american soldier, our boys in blue, running into someone's house on CHRISTMAS EVE.. to arrest someone while the guy's mom/wife was shouting "What did he do? For god's sake, what did he do?!?"
Why is it that when the Israelis bring their tanks in and blow up the Palestinians, that what they do is wrong and shame on them.
But when we do the same, that's OK. Because we're LIBERATING THE IRAQI PEOPLE. And unlike the Israelis, the Iraqis never actually terrorized us.
Can you truly tell me that Billy was more sinful than George? Bill may have had his "moral compass" a little askew.. but when he lied about Monica, it didn't start a war.
How many American soldiers dead? How many will die before we leave?
Better yet, how many IRAQIs dead? How many of Saddams men? (Isn't it interesting how we have to come in guns blazing because Saddams men are EVIL and might kill us if we don't kill them first.) How many innocents?
How many Iraqi children died? How many are yet to die? How many didn't even get the chance to die, and will survive, disfigured or scarred, so they can always remember when the Americans came in to destroy their country.
Folks, I'm begging you to do the right thing this election season.
End the madness.
Vote Kerry in 2004.
... Still need to update this picture.
Kristen and I have probably been talking politics nonstop since the DNC. We've discussed Kerry and Bush, we've discussed Iraq, we've discussed Israel and Palestine.
In alot of ways, how I feel about alot of issues sort of clicked into place in the middle of the movie and I left feeling really angry, really upset and ready to argue with Kristen about statements she'd made over the last week.
I know that some of you think that Michael Moore is just opinionated tripe (*eyes
xb95*) and I will agree that I don't agree with every one of his points, with every way he connected the dots. But I don't think Mr. Moore is tripe at all. I think he's biased, but I think MOST of his points are very fair.I have been against George W. Bush from Day 1, increasingly so as time has passed. I'll strongly argue against any conservative that that man has done more to harm this country than, in any way, to make it better. He's stripped us, the American people, of our rights, of our liberty and of our dignity. He's helped to turn us from otherwise normal people into little children, afraid of every sound, believing in every bullshit story we've heard. We're still victim to it. Just this morning, Kristen sends me an email that she's uncomfortable because now they're saying that THE TERRORISTS (Dun dun dun) are going to attack New York, DC or Newark (Dun dun dun). They don't know when, but they've got GOOD INTELLIGENCE that they plan to do this.. sometimes.. eventually.. probably.
You'll excuse me, but I'm sick of my strings being pulled. I don't buy it, Chicken Little. Do you know what Homeland Security has become? A joke. They're the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Oh no!
What 9/11 did to us is it forced us to the realization that terrorists could do the unthinkable.. on American soil. And now our imaginations have become our worst enemies. You know, says we... 9/11 was bad.. but a Nuclear bomb would be worse. You know, we say, we live near a Nuclear Power Plant. Are we in danger? You know, we say, we live near a chemical plant. We must be in danger too. You know, we say, there's been a bunch of random shootings in Washington. Maybe THAT'S the Terrorists too! Oh no! White powder in an envelope! I'm doooooomed!
My own mother, usually fairly well-thought out, actually thought Buffalo might be a good target because of Niagara Falls and the Power Plant.
Um. No.
You are in far more danger from cancer from cigarettes, from a drive by shooting, from a drunk driving accident than that THE TERRORISTS (dun dun dun) will actually come for you/your city.
I despise Herr Bush for the way he's lied to this county.. because as we were freaking out over all the What Ifs.. he actually managed to convince a pretty good portion of this country that IRAQ.. otherwise minding their business and not doing anything except for occasionally rattling the old saber... was involved with 9/11... and managed to switch, in our minds, Osama's face with Saddam's.
You know.. this kills me. SOME of you (and you know who you are) HATE Bill Clinton because Bill Clinton LIED to you. Because he told a lie and was immoral and we can't have a leader like that. But you SAME PEOPLE have no problem with George Bush lying to you and then letting.. what's the current count? EDIT:
Do you know the most ugly/moving part of the film. It's the part all you little warhawks out there want to forget. The cost of war. It's seeing the blood and the guts. It's seeing teenagers with half their faces melted off. It's seeing men frantically searching for survivors and finding a torso.. and then a head. And it's seeing an american soldier, our boys in blue, running into someone's house on CHRISTMAS EVE.. to arrest someone while the guy's mom/wife was shouting "What did he do? For god's sake, what did he do?!?"
Why is it that when the Israelis bring their tanks in and blow up the Palestinians, that what they do is wrong and shame on them.
But when we do the same, that's OK. Because we're LIBERATING THE IRAQI PEOPLE. And unlike the Israelis, the Iraqis never actually terrorized us.
Can you truly tell me that Billy was more sinful than George? Bill may have had his "moral compass" a little askew.. but when he lied about Monica, it didn't start a war.
How many American soldiers dead? How many will die before we leave?
Better yet, how many IRAQIs dead? How many of Saddams men? (Isn't it interesting how we have to come in guns blazing because Saddams men are EVIL and might kill us if we don't kill them first.) How many innocents?
How many Iraqi children died? How many are yet to die? How many didn't even get the chance to die, and will survive, disfigured or scarred, so they can always remember when the Americans came in to destroy their country.
Folks, I'm begging you to do the right thing this election season.
End the madness.
Vote Kerry in 2004.
... Still need to update this picture.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 10:48 am (UTC)I definitely have to get around to seeing this movie, preferably in broad daylight. Just reading some of the descriptions of the gorier parts of the movie gave me the wince.
But I'm right there with you on the Bill's lies vs. Dubya's lies.
"I did not have sex with that woman" was a lie only in that they asked him if he had sex, when all he got was Monica's lips on his personal bits. Their fault for not going into specific detail in a day and age where spindoctoring and semantics are normal and commonplace.
The lies, starting with "every person counts" and going on from there are used and changed without compunction from the Bush League.
We have to have a change.
I have a Republican friend -- love her dearly in all other ways, but she thinks that people seeing "Bush League agenda" in the most recent repeat of the terrorism chorus are just ranting and raving.
It frustrates and saddens me.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 11:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 11:25 am (UTC)When I take that into account, I strip away a little bit of the shock value from the film and start to consider the facts he's laid out. And even if you strip that movie in the most conservative fashion, the picture that's left ain't pretty. Bush clearly lied, exaggerated, or otherwise failed to exercise any kind of diligence (much less due diligence, which I feel is a lot) in making his decision to cause the death of a bunch of Iraqis and Americans, and that's a horrible crime.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 11:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 11:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 12:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 12:35 pm (UTC)Keep in mind, too, 600-700 of that has been after Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in May 2003.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 12:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 01:05 pm (UTC)Should I clean up the language first? :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 01:52 pm (UTC)My feeling was then, and still is, some Republican put Monica up to it to try to take Bill down, since the man appeared to be Teflon.
And now the Lemur is Teflon, it would appear.
And my feeling was then, and still is, he knew 9/11 was going to happen and let it so he could spin the government how he wanted.
Ask anybody in the air force how fast they can scramble jets when alerted. Ask anybody how fast those jets were scrambled on 9/11.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 02:27 pm (UTC)I'm not sure I believe that Monica was necessarily "put up" to it, and even if she was, Monica was hardly the only woman Bill messed around with. So in terms of his moral compass, even if Bill HADN'T done the cigar tango with Monica, his compass would still be a little askew.
I've wondered often if Bush knew 9/11 would happen. The evidence still seems to point to "No, he didn't." At least.. not specifically.
I mean, ask yourself this.. try to imagine yourself before 9/11.. would it ever have occured to you to flow a plane into a BUILDING? Because it never would have occured to me. Nuclear Bomb, Chemical Gas, Guys with explosives on their bodies, Check.. Plane into a building? No. Never thought of it.
I'm from Buffalo, New York one of the border cities and security here is and has always been fairly weak. Assumingly these guys had passports to get their student visas. That's all you need to get in and out of the U.S. as you please.
I DO think mistakes were made. I DO Believe that NORAD was pointing the wrong way, for example. And that we, the very very arrogant American people, would never seriously consider that terrorists could ever hit us HERE. I think that was the biggest blow, by the way, of 9/11, to realize that, despite everything we believe about the power of our military, the might of our defense systems, we COULD be hit. Hard. That realization scared the shit out of us. We were not untouchable. We could be hurt. And that opened us up to being manipulated by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld.. and the enemy of the common man, Tom Ridge.
And, by the way, for those who believe that Tom Ridge isn't such a bad guy, let me ask you this. Pretend you have a child. Now.. if the world is an unsafe place (and it is), do you tell your children "You will get in a car accident. We don't know when.. but it's very likely you will." or do you do what you can to prepare your child for the eventualities that life will bring without necessarily frightening the shit out of him? Tom Ridge is a scare monger. And, frankly, my roomate's mother's hairdresser's customer's grandmother has better intelligence than Tom Ridge and the Bureau of Homeland Security.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 03:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-02 09:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-03 04:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-03 10:04 pm (UTC)Actually, about a year or two previous to 9/11, I'd watched an episode of a short-lived show on UPN (I think it was called Level 9) where there were 'home-grown' terrorists that had not only hijacked a plane to fly into a building, but also set the auto-pilot to do so, and the protagonists of the story had to go crawling inside access panels or something in order to manually override it. Given that this was TV, they succeeded in doing so in time to avoid crashing into the building.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-04 07:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-04 02:47 pm (UTC)I wouldn't disagree with ALL of it. I agree with the end, though. Clinton IS one of the most investigated presidents of all time. Nothing's stuck but Monica.
Says something about Big Bad Billy Boy