Mr. Moore’s Propaganda. Fahrenheit 9/11

Politics is a skill to deceive people into believing and following politician’s ideology and policy. In this sense, idiotic Bush was caught and failed, and finally he was the derision of clever Michael Moore. On the other hand, Moore is a successful, shrewd, Democratic businessman who knows what to sell, whom to sell, how to sell, when to sell, and where to sell. And he is also a seditious demagogue in postmodern society, I strongly believe, because he can reassemble scrappy, nonchronological, sometimes inappropriate, and already known images into the terrific show for personal attack, which wins top honor at 2004 Cannes Film Festival. As you know, he has taught himself how to incite the labor class and stimulate their feelings from “The Big One,” “Roger and Me,” to “Bowling For Columbine.” He is also very good at laying bare power holders’ secrets, which he knows very well that the have-nots would enjoy a lot. As a result Fahrenheit 9/11 comes out in the world.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is the controversial compilation of Bush’s deceptions. Its plot is as simple and outspoken as 1970’s anticommunist education in South Korea. To make a long story, Michael Moore completely intended to beat Bush up this time, stitching fragmental and unrelated video clips together. He successfully taunted his great President and his administration, using explicit derision and condemnation. However his controversy unfortunately would divide the world into black-and-white dichotomy. More unfortunately, it actually causes people to divide two extreme groups such as left-wing or right-wing, anti-Bush or pro-Bush, anti-American or pro-American, the have-nots or the haves, and Democrats or Republicans. Any negotiation cannot be expected under the condition in which one should choose friend or foe in his game and a neutral cannot be accepted. It will never end before defeating an enemy, Bush administration. Moore’s idea is so stupid, childish, and dangerous (because North Korea can be an axis of evil all the time in his standpoint), even though what he has done is admirable in a sense.

However what really bothers me in Fahrenheit 9/11 is that the truth or the fact manufactured by him cannot incite people or politicians to change their ideologies, policies, or actions. As usual, his documentary does not suggest any alternatives or solutions even after dividing people into two angry extremists. If he asserts that it is audience’s turn to do something for a change, it will be so irresponsible. Unless a series of his works are extended to the real actions to stop the war, it can be exactly the same as foolish American reality shows (I believe that it actually is, because he does not care about the war but Bush. How many American do change their belief after watching it? Or do they at least reflect on their conduct in Iraq?), which people just watch to kill the time. What I truly want him to do is not to show us his ideologically prejudiced conspiracy theory but to show us the facts more close to the reality. It is sad to say, however, Fahrenheit 9/11 is not an anti-war documentary but an anti-Bush propaganda film. Therefore he didn’t give up investigating Starbucks and the connection of Jew. Who knows that they are producers of his film? That is why I hate narrow-minded Moore. And his own Fahrenheit 9/11 is not persuasive at all.

Moreover, Moore’s story still possessed the viewpoint of the American, which he has never overcome. His camera just follows eyes of American from the beginning to the end of the pro-Democratic propaganda. Absolutely ridiculous is his insistence that he is a spokesman of labor classes, the have-nots, or leftists of the United States because he is an unchangeably privileged upper-middle class white straight male Democratic American. He can never be Springsteen, I believe. He is totally different from us. That is what he continuously said in the movie, using his mike and camera, isn’t it? It is pathetic that he neglected others’ view such as Iraqis in the middle of real unwanted war. It is not that important for him to record screaming Iraqi poor women or tortured Iraqi innocent men. But what he really worried about is poor young American’s recruitment, young U.S. soldiers listening to “Bodies” by Drowning Pool or “Fire Water Burn” by Bloodhound Gang, and the number of casualties which the government tried to hide (Actually he may not care about those things but worries about the reelection of Bush). And he continuously forced me to participate in his partly manufactured melodrama or tearjerkers, exploiting and dramatizing an American mother who wailed for her son. Damn it, Michael Moore! I’ll tell you something. “There’s an old saying in Tennessee… well, it’s an old saying in Texas, I believe also in Tennessee. Fool me once… shame on you. Fool me… I won’t get fooled again.”

Moore’s greatest end in this flick is for Bush only to be fucked up. He does not care about the fear and the agony of others, non-American people oppressed by the United States. Please remember how many innocent Korean had been murdered by U.S. soldiers in their killing spree during Korean War. We don’t have to jump on another American propagandistic bandwagon, even though we cannot be free from the United States. Kerry may change the United States. But I don’t think anything can be expected from his winning here in Korea. Mr. Moore, please don’t exploit innocent, ignorant people for your political interests!

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