This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost. For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE:
This wasn’t my first encounter with The Awful Truth. I’ve seen it before back in the day. But when I saw the DVDs in the store, I decided to buy them and work through the series again anyway.
Parts of The Awful Truth I remembered very well. Parts of it I didn’t remember at all. (I’m not sure if that’s because I never saw the whole thing, or if it’s just because my memory is so lousy). But anyway, I’ve now worked my way through the entire series.
Like most liberals, I have a lot of ambivalence towards Michael Moore (something - I’ve- expressed in this blog before). I sympathize with his politics, but I believe that anything that misinforms or misleads does a disservice to the political discourse.
(The extent to which Michael Moore’s movies are misleading is always a source of controversy. Part of the problem is that most of the right-wing hatchet men who attack Moore’s movies are seldom any more honest than Moore is, and this leads to a lot of claims and counterclaims that just make my head spin.)
However, the great thing about The Awful Truth is that it isn’t a documentary—it’s just pure political theater, so you don’t need to worry about fact checking it, you just enjoy the theater. Michael Moore does some great political stunts like getting throat cancer victims to sing Christmas carols at Philip Morris, for instance. Or driving around a Sodom mobile to every state where sodomy is still illegal.
In the course of the show, Michael Moore of course manages to really piss off a lot of rich and powerful people—making me a little bit suspicious about the fact that the show was mysteriously cancelled after two seasons despite getting good ratings.
And yet, much of the format of The Awful Truth—sending correspondents out to conduct satirical interviews with people who don’t realize they’re being satirized until it’s too late—is what The Daily Show is still doing.
And in fact, considering The DailyShow manages to produce 4 episodes a week (compared to The Awful Truth’s 12 episodes a season) The Daily Show is arguably doing Michael Moore’s job a lot more efficiently than Michael Moore ever did.
* The movie
appears to confuse Mercantilism (the buying and selling of goods and services)
with Capitalism (a system under which the profits of industry go to the
investors of capital instead of to the workers.)
* Most of the examples in the movie are attacks on
corruption instead of on the theory of capitalist economics.
* Many of the examples in the movie are attacks on the
banking and finance system instead of the capitalist manufacturing system.
* The movie relies strongly on emotional appeal instead of a
logical critique of the capitalist system
* The film doesn’t so much develop a coherent argument as it
is just a collection of examples of capitalist excesses.
* The movie flirts with socialist ideas, but fails to
present any sort of socialist program as an alternative to capitalism.
Positives
* Love him or hate him, nothing Michael Moore does is ever
boring.
* The film may rely heavily on emotional appeals, but it
hits this emotional appeal very skillfully.
* The film may be a critique of the excesses of capitalism
and of corruption (instead of the underlying system), but it does a great job
of exposing the corruption in banking and in Wall Street.
The Review
In spite of
all its flaws, a very powerful film that needs to be seen. The film doesn’t quite present a coherent
critique when viewed in isolation, but it can be a great educational tool when
presented as part of a larger argument against capitalism. This film has the potential to begin a debate
that our country badly needs, and should, ideally, be seen by citizen of the
United States.
Other Things I Would
Write About If I Wasn’t Limiting Myself to 100 Word
* A list of all the really good points this movie makes.
When I last wrote about my television addiction back in January, I had partly
written in the hope that by confessing my crimes, I could be purged of
them. Once I had confessed all, the hope
was my soul would be unburdened and I would be free to turn over a new leaf and
rid myself of my slothful habits.
Alas, it
was not to be. I didn’t magically lose
my addiction just by blogging about it.
And so,
since January, I regret to say that I’ve wasted many more hours of my life watching
TV.
Despite the
huge amount of TV I’ve been watching, it remains my ambition to give up TV, and
start fully living my life.
…Or that
failing, at the very least to redirect more of this time towards reading, which
may still be boring and solitary, but at least would improve my mind.
At the
moment, however, it remains only an ambition.
Instead, I keep turning on the television to fill my hours.
(In my
defense, I think most people watch a lot of TV when they live alone. When you live by yourself, in the evenings it
seems to quiet and eerie to just sit silently with a book, so I opt for the
sound and picture show of television.
And in the morning, the apartment also seems too quiet, and so there’s a
huge temptation to just turn on the TV some more. And of course in the afternoons…)
Well, my
philosophy is that if you watched it, you might as well admit it. So here is another post confessing all the
hours I wasted on TV, and giving my short capsule reviews on various shows.
(As with before, my viewing habits are limited entirely to what is available at the cheap DVD stores in Cambodia. There are shows that some
people have recommended to me that I haven’t been able to track down out here,
but this is what I did watch.)
Simon Schama: A
History of Britain
I’m a huge fan
of documentaries, and this one was very well done and well produced.
Also, added
to Monarchyand This Sceptred Isle, this show
helped to complete my education about Britain’s long history.
When I
first started watching the show, I expected it to be another This Sceptred Isle—a show that would
methodically go through all the centuries of British history.
I was
slightly disappointed then when I realized that the series was skipping over
large parts of history entirely. The
series would chose on event to examine in detail, and then jump ahead 100 years
or so to the next event.
The English Civil War, for example, was very well done, but other interesting
events like the War of the Roses got skipped over completely.
Nonetheless,
it did a very good job with the stories that it did chose to focus on.
Oliver Stone’s Untold
History of the United States
Another history documentary.
This
documentary series is at times spectacular.
Oliver Stone is no stranger to cinematic storytelling, and, in the
earlier episodes especially, he brings all his storytelling abilities to this project. The archival footage, the dramatic music, and
the bold narration all contribute to the feel of watching something epic.
The first 5
or 6 episodes are examples of documentary history at its absolute finest.
The problem,
from an entertainment perspective at least, is in some of the later episodes
the editorializing gets in the way of the story telling. For example, the episode on the 1980s is less
a coherent narrative than it is just a list of all the reasons Reagan sucked. The episode on
George W. Bush is the same.
I don’t disagree with Oliver Stone’s politics, but the powerful
narrative thrust of the early episodes gets a bit muddled in the later
episodes.
Still,
inspite of the fact that the narrative quality of the series is not entirely
consistent over all 10 episodes, the high points of this series more than make
up for the low points. It’s well worth
checking out.
Sidenotes:
1). I’m not sure all this information has ever been in one
documentary series before. I remember having
to learn all my information about the untold history of the United States in piecemeal fashion. I learned one thing here, another thing
there, and just gradually accumulated knowledge.
Now it’s
possible to just watch this documentary, and in 10 short hours accumulate all
of this knowledge in one go. Which
brings me to my next point:
2) It’s really surprising they allowed this to be on
TV.
And 3). One last observation: Oliver Stone is famous for his
conspiracy theories in his movie JFK,
but fortunately he largely stays away from conspiracy theories in this
series. (He hints that relations between
Kennedy and the CIA were not good, but stops short of trying to explicitly
connect any dots.) In The Untold History of the United States,
Oliver Stone largely sticks to facts that, while they may not be largely
reported, are not contested. I think this series is credible.
(In my
youth I was on-board with some of the Kennedy assassination conspiracy
theories, but over time I’ve come to agree with Chomsky that spending too much
time speculating on unknowns is a waste of time. For Chomsky’s thoughts on why we shouldn’t
waste time speculating about conspiracy theories SEE HERE.)
I, Claudius
I didn’t
expect to see this 1976 BBC miniseries in the Cambodian DVD shops,
but I was very happy to stumble upon it.
(Robert
Graves actually wrote two books about the life of Claudius: I, Claudius, and the sequel Claudius the God. I never went on to read Claudius the God because our school library didn’t have it, but I,Claudius made a big impression on me. The BBC miniseries covers both books.)
Considering
how old this series is, it holds up remarkably well, and in my opinion is every
bit as interesting to watch as more recent historical dramas.
It also
shows how great historical fiction about ancient Rome can be produced on a small budget.
And a final
bonus: I, Claudius has some great
famous actors in it: Brian Blessed, John Rhys-Davies, and for Star Trek fans, a young
(well…younger) Patrick Stewart playing Sejanus.
Roots: The Next
Generations
I was first introduced to Roots when my 5th grade school teacher
showed us the first couple episodes.
It wasn’t
until years later, when I was in Japan, that I finally got my hands
on the whole series. (The Japanese video
rental store near my town had the series in stock—in English with Japanese
subtitles.)
But I’ve
never had an opportunity to watch Roots:
The Next Generations until now when I stumbled upon it at a DVD store in Cambodia.
Before I
watched this series, I had always assumed that Roots: The Next Generations was just an attempt to milk more money
off of the original Roots. But I was mistaken. This is the ending of the story, and without
this sequel the series would not have been complete.
Roots:
The Next Generations came out in 1979 just 2 years after the original Roots, and it picks up right where the
original Roots left off. And it completes the goal of the TV series
which, like the book, is to follow Alex Haley’s family tree all the way from Africa to the present day.
I suspect
what happened is that the book got split into two different TV shows for
economic reasons—the TV company wasn’t willing to commit to the whole story
until it knew it had an audience, and only after the success of the original Roots did they agree to complete the
story.
But now
that the whole series has been produced, they should really just stop selling
it separately as Roots and Roots: The Next Generations and instead
put box up both DVDs together into one package and sell the whole thing as Roots, because it really is just one
continuous story.
The TV show
is from 1979, and has a lot of the hallmarks of television drama
from the late 1970s/early 1980s that strike us as cheesy today—over-acting,
overly dramatic music that swells up at the end of each episode just as a
character looks off into the distance and says some sort of dramatic line, a
complete lack of any subtlety, et cetera.
And yet,
inspite of all its flaws, it’s still incredibly addictive to watch. The cheesy 70s television drama still has a strong narrative appeal, and I found
myself getting sucked in episode after episode and unable to pull myself away
from my couch. (I guess it was not for
nothing that Roots was one of the the most
watched mini-series in American television history.)
All the
famous actors who participated in the series also make it fun to watch: Peter
Fonda, Marlon Brando, James Earl Jones, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis.
…And then
low behold, I’m walking around the DVD shop, and I see that
they actually have gone ahead and made a TV series based on the War of the
Roses. (All I had to do was ask for it
apparently.)
This series
only covers the tail end of the War of the Roses, so I guess I’m still waiting
for the epic series that would trace the entirety of the conflict from the
beginning to the end. But it was still
good history for what I got.
Now, I know
this series got pretty terrible reviews [See Wikipedia. Also the avclub article]. And yes, a lot of the acting could have been better.
And yes, the pacing also should have
been better. (Some events that really
should have received more dramatic importance—like the death of King Henry VI—just
got muddled through very quickly).
But, for
all its flaws, I still found this series fascinating to watch.
If you don’t
like history, you should probably stay away from this series. But if you’re a history geek like I am, then
you’ll be willing to forgive a lot of bad acting for a good historical story,
and inspite of everything I found the underlying story fascinating.
It’s a
complicated part of British history, and they did a very good job of trying to
provide some sort of narrative to it. It
is also interesting to compare their portrayal of Richard III with Shakespeare’s play. Roughly the same events
happen, but they put a very different interpretation on the motivations of the
characters.
Michael Moore’s The
Awful Truth
This wasn’t my
first encounter with The Awful Truth. I’ve seen it before back in the day. But when I saw the DVDs in the store, I
decided to buy them and work through the series again anyway.
Parts of The Awful Truth I remembered very
well. Parts of it I didn’t remember at
all. (I’m not sure if that’s because I
never saw the whole thing, or if it’s just because my memory is so lousy). But anyway, I’ve now
worked my way through the entire series.
Like most
liberals, I have a lot of ambivalence towards Michael Moore (something - I’ve- expressed in this blog before). I sympathize with his politics, but I believe
that anything that misinforms or misleads does a disservice to the political
discourse.
(The extent
to which Michael Moore’s movies are misleading is always a source of
controversy. Part of the problem is that
most of the right-wing hatchet men who attack Moore’s
movies are seldom any more honest than Moore
is, and this leads to a lot of claims and counterclaims that just make my head
spin.)
However,
the great thing about The Awful Truth
is that it isn’t a documentary—it’s just pure political theater, so you don’t
need to worry about fact checking it, you just enjoy the theater. Michael Moore does some great political
stunts like getting throat cancer victims to sing Christmas carols at Philip
Morris, for instance. Or driving around
a Sodom mobile to
every state where sodomy is still illegal.
In the
course of the show, Michael Moore of course manages to really piss off a lot of
rich and powerful people—making me a little bit suspicious about the fact that
the show was mysteriously cancelled after two seasons despite getting good
ratings.
And yet, much
of the format of The Awful Truth—sending
correspondents out to conduct satirical interviews with people who don’t
realize they’re being satirized until it’s too late—is what The Daily Show is still
doing.
And in
fact, considering The DailyShow manages to produce 4 episodes a
week (compared to The Awful Truth’s
12 episodes a season) The Daily Show
is arguably doing Michael Moore’s job a lot more efficiently than Michael Moore
ever did.
And, at
least in terms of just creating an atmosphere, Carnivale does a great job of mixing in a magical fantasy element
with the real events of the 1930s.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the opening credits:
'
Furthermore,
I think it was an interesting idea to try and re-imagine the life of Father
Coughlin (W) and the pro-fascist forces as part of a
wider spiritual battle between good and evil.
But the
pacing of this show just killed me.
I can
handle a mystery getting teased out for an episode or two before it’s
resolution, but when a mystery is just endlessly teased out and never resolved,
then I start to get impatient. And when
the writers seem intent on adding just more mysteries and questions while
appearing to forget about the ones they’ve already introduced, then I just get
frustrated.
This may
just be a personality preference. I like
nice neat logical stories where everything ties up neatly at the end. Furthermore, if I’m forced to choose between
the two, I generally prefer story to atmosphere. People who have different personalities than
mine will probably enjoy Carnivale
more than I did.
I had high hopes for this
series. I love political dramas, and I’m
a big fan of Kevin Spacey.
Alas, I
regret to say that the series was awful.
So awful, in fact, that I didn’t even bother finishing the last few
episodes. (What was the point? None of the characters seemed at all like
real people, and I the plot was obviously manufactured and contrived.)
I first
started watching this show because it was recommended by the magazine Asia Life, one of the
expat magazines out here in Cambodia.
I was only
a few episodes in before I started wondering what in the world the editors of Asia Life were thinking. The show was so cheesy, and so contrived, and
just…well, ridiculous really.
And yet,
despite all the problems with the show—despite the cheesy soap opera
relationships, the contrived plot points, and the arrogant 20/20 hindsight
smugly applied to every news event, I still found myself watching episode after
episode.
Aaron
Sorkin may mess up a lot of things, but he still understands the
mechanics of screenwriting very well.
Each episode may be terrible objectively if you focus on the plot, but
Aaron Sorkin still knows how to keep the dialogue snappy and he
knows how to keep the forward momentum of the story going. So the show may be terrible, but it never
really gets boring. And, I have to
confess that even while I was rolling my eyes at how cheesy the plot was, I
still kept watching it.
Also, if
you’re a political junky, then all the political diatribes mixed-in with the
soap opera drama is another guilty pleasure.
On several of the polemical speeches throughout the series, I think
Sorkin did a very good job of sticking it to the Republican Party.
Of course
when Sorkin bashes causes I’m sympathetic to, like Occupy Wall Street, then I
enjoy it a lot less, but I guess that’s just my liberal bias double-standard
showing through. (I think actually there’s actually good case to be made for
the strength of a grass roots bottom up leaderless movement. But the straw-men Occupy Wall Street
characters that Sorkin created were never able to give a good defense for
this.)
This is one of those movies I really should have seen a long time ago, but didn't, mostly because it is hard to find these kind of independent movies in Japan. (Ah, Japan, my standard excuse for everything). In fact because I was out of the country, I didn't even hear about it until Phil wrote about it on his blog about a year ago.
This is a very powerful documentary. My biggest fear is that, like a lot of independent documentaries, the people who need to watch it the most aren't going to be interested, and it will end up mostly speaking to the converted.
The film makers apparently have some connections, because lots of famous people agreed to speak on this film, including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, and Michael Moore. (In fact a little bit of internet research shows the film maker Mark Achbar is also responsible for the Chomsky documentary "Manufacturing Consent"--Which is also a must see and is available at the Grand Rapids downtown public library).
Chomsky in this movie is wonderfully eloquent and articulate as always. In fact its a pity they didn't use him more than they did, but I guess it helps to have a variety of viewpoints.
Michael Moore has become a bit of a polemical figure, and I think his credibility has been compromised, so I'm not sure his fame is really an asset to this film, but I think everything he said in this film was true as far as it went.
The film touches on a variety of issues, such as sweatshop labor, the world bank, free trade, environmental problems, health and safety problems, corporate media control, anti-trust and monopoly violations, child advertising and corporate propaganda, et cetera. Each of these could well be its own documentary in its own right. This film does the job of pulling them all together and makes a solid case that our current system is broken, but I think this strength is also its greatest weakness, in that none of these issues are really examined as thoroughly as they could be.
As a result this film works as a general overview or perhaps outline for the concerned viewer who wants to use this as a starting base to learn more. But, aside from a few outrageous examples on each point, I'm not entirely sure they are able to sufficiently back up a lot of their secondary points. I think they're right, but I'm not sure everything is presented as air-tight as it could be given the vast variety of topics covered and the two hour time limit.
For example the protest against Free Trade Agreement in Quebec is presented as a case of the poor verse the elites, which I believe it was, but for someone not already familiar with the issues behind free trade there was very little background information given as to why the protesters are against it.
And although the film makes a powerful critique that the present system is broken, the solutions are pretty muddled. Although the film never uses the word "anarchism", some of the activist portrayed in the film advocate community control of the corporations, which would be a form of anarcho-Communism. At other times the film veers more towards advocating reformist capitalism, such as increased government regulations, or even just the current model with increased social consciousness. Also at times the film suggests that most of today's capitalist problems are not caused by the concentration of capital, but by the structure of a corporation itself, as if things would be better of if the means of production were still owned by individuals.
The result is a film that felt very powerful and convincing while I was in the heat of the moment viewing it, but afterwards left me slightly confused as to what exactly the main point of it was.
Still definitely worth watching though, if nothing else just because of the list of outrageous corporate abuses that this film is able to detail in 2 hours (and heaven knows they could have done another 200 hours if they wanted).
Useless Wikipedia Fact
After the Boston tea party, as far as tea drinking itself was concerned, many colonists, in Boston and elsewhere in the country, pledged to keep away from the drink as a protest, turning instead to "Balsamic hyperion" (made from raspberry leaves) and other herbal infusions. This social protest movement away from tea drinking was not, however, long-lived.
I really am trying to make an effort to watch less TV and read more books, but I do backslide every now and again. But I figured as long as I was watching some movies, I would post some thoughts on this blog.
1. “FahrenHYPE 9/11" and “Michael Moore Hates America”
It probably goes without saying that I’m not in the target audience for either of these movies. But I do like exposing myself to the other point of view every now and again. And I don’t mean that as a chore or something I have to make myself do. If you’re a political geek like I am, there’s something invigorating about watching something you disagree with just so you can gear up your brain to think of all the reasons why it’s crap. Or there’s the human fascination with a train wreck; perhaps the same impulse which makes some people enjoy bad movies makes us enjoy bad arguments.
I realize this isn’t something unique to me. I read once in a newspaper article the theory that a fair percentage of FOX news viewers were made up of liberals who loved to hate it. I’m not sure if any studies have been done to support this thesis, but antidotally it seems true. I know of several liberals who get a perverse kick out of watching FOX news or listening to Rush Limbaugh, and I count myself among them.
(Now, the big question is: is this true for conservatives as well? Again, antidotally I’d hazard a guess at no. Most of the conservatives I know seem to take pride in the fact that they get all of their news from FOX or Limbaugh. And I have yet to meet a conservative who sat through a volume of Noam Chomsky just to see what he had to say. Or went and watched “Fahrenheit 9/11" just to expose themselves to that point of view. In fact many conservative reviewers actually bragged about not having seen the movie they were criticizing. And remember that conservative movement that tried to prevent “Fahrenheit 9/11" from playing in theaters?
But maybe that’s just my liberal bias making selective examples. If anyone can make the case that liberals are just as close minded, you’re welcome to try and convince me.)
Anyway, I digress....The point is these two films.
Ideally, I’d say every liberal should watch these movies, especially if you’ve already seen “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Although I realize not everyone has the time, interest, or energy to sit through all this stuff.
Both of these movies actually make a lot of good points as far as their criticism of Michael Moore. I thought I was a pretty intelligent viewer of Moore’s movies, but its amazing how much of his stuff that I believed at face value is actually mis-represented. It makes me feel used.
The problem with “FahrenHYPE 9/11" and “Michael Moore Hates America” is that they both don’t content themselves with simply correcting Moore’s factual errors. Instead they use this as a way to get their foot in the door, and then they go into a bunch of flag waving patriotic crap about how great America is and how well the war is going in Iraq.
I guess I’m mostly thinking of “FahrenHYPE 9/11" now, which included a speech by Zell Miller about how he found a nest of poisonous snakes under his porch, and he took unilateral pre-emptive action against them without consulting the United Nations because he knew the snakes were dangerous.
(First of all Zell, that has nothing to do with the film. Secondly, that’s a stupid analogy. Thirdly the Japanese already tried that argument in the Far East Military Tribunal to justify their attack on Pearl Harbor. Would you like to guess what the court decided?)
But still, you’ve got to admit Michael Moore himself opened the door for all that himself. If he had made a tighter movie with less misleading stuff in it, then the right wing wouldn’t have even had the opportunity to use this “bait and switch” technique.
“Michael Moore Hates America” on the other hand, actually tries to out-Moore Moore, by using a lot of the same dirty tricks that made Michael Moore famous.
For example, the frame of the movie revolves around this young film maker trying to get an interview with Moore, a la “Roger and Me”. And of course Moore doesn’t grant the interview, so he looks like the bad guy just like Roger Smith does in Moore’s film. But Moore is never going to agree to an interview for a film titled, “Michael Moore Hates America.”
You could argue that Moore is just getting what’s coming to him, but I’m not sure we the viewers deserve to be caught in the middle.
What would be nice is if someone from the left would make a balanced critique of Moore which would point out where he was wrong as well as where he was right. I’m still waiting for that film. In the meantime I guess there’s always Spinsanity. (I know they’ve retired, but you can still read their critiques of Moore in their archives).
2. American Black Out
A very interesting documentary on the disenfranchisement of Black voters in both the 2000 and 2004 elections. It also dove tails this story with the story of Cynthia McKinney and the harassment she got from Republicans. Their website is here, and you can watch a preview for this film here.
They make a very strong case that there was a coordinated effort to prevent minority voters in battleground states during both 2000 and 2004. Of course, just having seen those critiques of Moore, I’m a little more wary of documentary films. Maybe 2 years down the road I’ll read a critique of this film.
Off hand though, it looked pretty solid to me. The only thing I thought was a little strange is that the film was up to date with the 2006 primary election, but not a word about McKinney’s controversy with the security guard. They just gave the impression that McKinney lost the primary because of Republican cross-overs during the primary. (And of course you always wonder, for everything mis-representation I caught, how many slipped by me.)
If you rent the DVD, the director’s commentary is particularly interesting, because they talk a lot about their theories on Fascism, and how Fascism is related to human nature. Over the course of 2 hours, they repeat themselves a lot, but they ask some interesting questions. For example, is Fascism something that is inherently in human nature, and that we have to rise above? And does war make everyone a fascist? They also mention how they tried to incorporate Noam Chomsky’s theories on media into the film. (And you thought it was just a stupid action flick).
Another theme is how many of their critics misinterpreted the film, and thought that they were actually advocating Fascism instead of satirizing it. Although I have to admit I myself was left scratching my head a bit when this film first came out.
4. The Life of Brian
This is another film I’ve seen before, but I haven’t seen it in a long time. I could never find it in any of the video stores in Japan. Sometimes humor doesn’t translate well across cultural boundaries. Comedies like “Dumb and Dumber” do well in Japan, but not so much Monty Python, and especially not “The Life of Brian”.
I think this has got to be my favorite film of all time. Or at least in my top ten. (I haven’t sat down and seriously thought about it yet). No matter how many times I see it, I never get sick of it. It’s one of those rare films that I actually like more and more with each repeated viewing. (And this doesn’t happen often. I love Star Wars, but I got sick of the original trilogy a long time ago. And after junior high school I can’t stand “The Princess Bride” anymore. It got shown at one too many church lock-ins.) But “Life of Brian” each time I watch it I appreciate the satire even more.
And the DVD edition has lost scenes, and a double commentary track with Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, John Cleese and Michael Palin. Well worth checking out again.
Link of the Day
If you need a good laugh (and you probably do), check out this "Neko" video on You tube of cats doing funny things. It got me laughing pretty hard. ("Neko" is Japanese for cat).
A friend recently wrote to me: "Your blog seems to have become a site for book reviews rather than detailing the everyday life of Joel Swagman. Sure, I know which books to read and which ones to avoid but the voyeurism factor has dropped significantly."
I can't claim I haven't been blogging much, but obviously the focus of this blog has been changing. Well, what can I say? Now that I'm back in the US, I'm running out of interesting stories in my everyday life.
.....Then again, some of the stuff I blogged about whilst in Japan wasn't all that interesting. Like just writing down conversations from a BBQ, or a night in a video arcade. Or several other posts I could probably mention. If I chose to write down every night out or every conversation like I did in Japan, I could probably come up with just as much material back here.
If it weren't for the book reviews, I guess this blog would have been very bare the past few months. The book review project has admittedly taken over the blog a bit. I didn't expect that when I started this. Who knew I read so much?
Although I didn't anticipate so many book reviews, I do like the idea of this project. When you read something the information is only going one way, so its nice to have a feeling of interaction with the book. Plus, when you are reading a book, you tend to want to talk about it with other people. And usually other people couldn't care less. So having this alternative outlet is a good way of saving the people around me from having to hear me talk all the time about what I'm reading at the moment.
(I should also mention that I originally got the idea from Phil and Peter, who announced similar projects on their blogs, although I didn't give them their full credit when I first started).
So, other than books, what has been going on lately? Well, I've enjoyed getting in touch with a lot of you. Getting together for coffee isn't the kind of thing that makes a good blog entry, but in the last month I've really enjoyed hanging out with Brett and Sarah, Phil, Bork, Peter (and meeting his lovely wife. Congratulations Peter) Dean, Guam, Tex Bruiny, my brother and his family, and even those of you without blogs.
Speaking of which, my Brother and his family were just up last week. Damn good to see them again. I don't have any exciting stories, and besides my sister already covered it on her blog (briefly here, and then in more detail here. I can only hope someone was in good shape to make that drive home after all the imbibing of spirits).
Bork is back from Russia and we got together the other night to watch "Why We Fight" which is an excellent documentary. I was nitpicking at some of it when Bork and I watched it, but over all it is much better than the much hyped "Fahrenheit 9-11". Bork and I lamented why "Fahrenheit 9-11" got so much more press, and in the end concluded it was because of the culture of celebrity obsession and the fame of Michael Moore. Two years ago in my review of "Fahrenheit 9-11" I said that despite the flaws of this movie, people needed to see it anyways just to expose themselves to the costs of this war. But I take that all back. Forget "Fahrenheit 9-11". The movie you need to see is "Why We Fight." You might not agree with it, but you owe it to yourself and to your country to at least expose yourself to this point of view before you start yelling obscenities at peace protesters.
Brett mentioned to me a couple times that interesting things always happen at these types of low level service industry type jobs, and that I should get a lot of good stories and blogging material. But thus far no luck. I work 3rd shift (11 PM-7 AM), and no one is really in the store during that time. Some friends have asked me what kind of people usually shop at 4 in the morning, and the answer is no one does. Until maybe 1 or 2 there are a few college age kids floating around (maybe) and about 5 some of the early rising old people start showing up, but most of the night the store is completely dead.
A week into the job I was transferred into the "Health and Beauty Care" Department. So I've been learning a lot about different kinds of shampoos and soaps. You would be amazed if you actually thought about how many different kinds of shampoo there are out there. I'm not sure what that says about our society. Sure people need to wash their hair, but who takes the time to shift through all these bottles of shampoo deciding which one is ideal for their hairstyle? Not me, that's for sure.
So that's my life at work, stocking shampoo and soap and wondering if handling feminine hygiene products makes me any less of a man. One more week left.
Notes From The Mailbag
A couple weeks ago a friend currently residing in Washington DC wrote me to say,
"--the whole political atmosphere is just so asinine at the moment. I know you're keeping up with whats going on from your weblog--trust me, it's worse than you know. "
As you can imagine, this statement got me a bit curious, so I wrote back to ask him what was going on that I didn't know about. He wrote me back and expanded on his thoughts about the political atmosphere in Washington DC. I thought it contained some interesting insights, so asked him if I could post it on my weblog. He agreed, with the following condition:
"Also, can I ask a favor? Please don't print my name or location. I am being honest with you when I say that some of the information I work with is sensitive, and we are constantly warned about telling others that we work with the kinds of people that we do. I alluded to it in my diatribe and that's about as far as I want to go. If anybody has comments or questions, can you just forward from your address? Thanks."
(He later added I could say he was in DC, because it was pretty obvious anyway, so don't worry I'm not betraying any confidences with that information.)
Anyway, here is his piece. As stated above, anyone who has any questions about this can e-mail me and I'll forward it along.
Thoughts on the Political Situation
I'm just speaking about the tenseness that seems to pervade everything here in DC. Tangibly speaking, DC is about 90% Democrat so it’s not hard to find people who support Kerry--but seeing as how DC and NY are essentially the epicenters of the political debate in this country during this election, you're constantly flooded with dissenting arguments and opinions, etc. This is usually a good aspect of a political debate, but ever since I returned to DC, it just seems like everyone is banging their head against the wall on both sides, without making any constructive progress. I will make no pretense about being unbiased on this argument; I’m a Kerry supporter. I am just trying to present what it’s like here in a city dominated by Democrats and a White House and Congress full of Republicans.
Right now is the whole flap over the Swift Boat ads and Kerry's service in Vietnam. Now, a majority of people say that Kerry himself has made his service the focal point of his campaign, and has opened himself up to examination and criticism--that is true, and it is fair that you look at his record. And now there are ads lambasting his service, saying he lied about his wounds, lied about his service, etc. The only problem is that the party that the ads support have a candidate who, yes, did serve in the national guard, but there was no way in HELL that he was ever going to be sent to Vietnam (say what you will about the “possibility” of Bush going into service; I can almost guarantee you it was NEVER going to happen with Bush 41 at the controls), and a Vice-President who deferred 5 times because he "had other priorities in the 60's". Kerry volunteered for service and they didn't; they made an active effort to stay out. Now, when you bring this up with Bush supporters, their argument is that it’s the principle of the matter--lets say that Kerry DID lie about his medal(s); does the fact that he volunteered make it right? The problem with this argument is that OTHER people had to sign his papers--he didn't give himself the medals. It’s amazing that all of these doctors who have come out to say that Kerry had self-inflicted or harmless wounds, etc 1) actually remember these supposedly insanely harmless wounds out of the thousands they treated during the war, and 2) I think in most to all cases, their names aren't even on the treatment forms.
Another problem is that every person who is in these Swift Boat ads never served directly with Kerry (when they say "served with", it means "they were in Vietnam at the same time he was"). A third problem is that every soldier Kerry DID serve with supports him and his version of events. Pretty much everyone and their mother have proved these ads false, yet they continue to run. So there's that. Oh yeah, now Bush has asked McCain to help him stop all 527 ads. This is the same McCain that Bush tried to smear in terms of his decorated military past in the LAST election.
Then we have Kerry's claims of war atrocities committed by American soldiers. Bush supporters say they’re "appalled" at the allegations, but as far as I know, no one has come out to refute them. My question is: what motive could Kerry possibly have by creating lies like that? I mean, if he was lying, what could he possibly stand to gain? He had to have known that he would have been labeled a “war criminal” right along with his comrades. I don’t see it.
Then there's the whole Iraq situation. No WMDs, soldiers still being killed, Osama still on the loose; 7 Marines were killed in a car bomb yesterday (9/6). And you have Bush making these asinine speeches stating "America is safer, America is safer" and then later saying "America is in danger!" to justify the war and the Patriot Act--these are verbatim comments from his recent speeches. And THEN you have Bush come out on NBC News last week and say “I don’t think the war on terrorism can be won.” Naturally, the minute the words left his mouth, the White House staff pounced into action to “articulate” what he was saying and reiterate that the war can be won. You get the feeling that keeping people in a seemingly never-ending war against, not a people, but an ideology, is very favorable in terms of the Bush “doctrine.” By the way, you should have seen Michael Moore on the O’Reilly factor a few weeks ago—I don’t always agree with Moore, but this time he totally thrashed O’Reilly--it was awesome.
Then there are the arguments over the wealth of the Kerry-Heinz family versus the Bushes. It’s interesting to me, that suddenly, the fact that someone has $80 million is vastly different to someone who has $30 million. The right-wing loves to argue that Kerry and Teresa have “all of this family money” and “they can’t relate to the common man.” Wait a second. Bush went to Yale, like Kerry, then to Harvard Business School. He and his family are worth tens of millions of dollars. Yet SOMEHOW they are more apt to “relate to the common man” than Kerry because they have a ranch in Texas or something. I read an Ann Coulter article a couple of weeks ago and she argues for Bush because “he has the lowest amount of wealth of any of the presidential candidates.” I guess that means I’m voting for Bush because he’s only got $30 million (I don’t know the exact numbers but you get the point) instead of Kerry because Kerry has $80 million. Bush must have a much greater understanding of me since my income is SO much closer to his. Sheesh.
Finally, something that I can see directly. I work for a defense consultant. My project at the moment is working with all of the CIO’s of the entities of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to formulate their response to the 9/11 Report Recommendations. Examples of DHS entities are: the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, Border and Transportation Security, etc. While I can’t mention a lot of the detailed information that we've been working with, I can say one thing: this nation is not nearly as prepared as Bush says it is. Yes, some important programs have been implemented since 9/11, but they are marginal at best and a great deal of information is still slipping through the cracks, and will continue to do so for some time.
So this is how we see it right now--the Bush administration acts as though every Monday is the start of a new news cycle, and pretends to completely forget everything that happened in the last week. And the problem is that so much new news is being created from all of this crap, he can do it and get away with it. And every time you talk with a Bush supporter, these are their main arguments:
-on WMDs: "but isn't it good that Saddam is out of power?" that’s not the point! The world would be a better place with HALF of its leaders out of power! We went to war because Iraq was an "imminent threat", which turns out to be completely false. And now we have over 1000 soldiers dead and have spent almost $150 billion. Oh, and by the way, Congress never declared war. I guess Bush should label himself an “armed conflict president” rather than a “war president.” --on Vietnam: They turn the entire argument back on Kerry, trying not to talk about Bush and Cheney balking on Vietnam; it’s amazing. You have National Guardsman and a deferrer picking apart his SILVER and BRONZE STARS and his THREE PURPLE HEARTS on "principle.” Regardless of any of the arguments made about what happened once Kerry was in Vietnam, Kerry volunteered to go. He volunteered his life, and earned various medals because of it. Absolutely amazing. --on terror (with a severe INCREASE in the amount of terrorist acts in the last year): the only thing they ever say is "Bush is strong. Four more years!" --What does that mean? He's strong? What the hell kind of reason is that? Yeah, you can be strong and lead the nation into a destructive war and be weak and lead the nation into a destructive war. His policies should be the focal point of the argument; not his ability to be “strong”, whatever that means. And because the country has become so polarized, there is absolutely NO constructive debate occurring. And that’s where the "banging the head against the wall" aspect comes in. The problem we see, as Kerry supporters, is that the facts obviously refute almost everything that Bush says, but all Bush supporters retort with is "Bush is strong. Kerry is a flip-flopper." [Side note: The Daily Show did an awesome editing trick on Bush last week. They had Governor Bush debate President Bush on the aspect of nation-building, with clips taken from speeches. Governor Bush was adamantly against it, and President Bush is obviously adamantly for it. I have every belief that all politicians are flip-floppers in some regard depending on what they think will get them elected (in most cases), but let’s be fair here. Bush is a politician just like the rest of them.] It’s as though Democrats point to a list of facts and say "what have you done besides take us to war on false pretenses and piss everyone off?" (it’s more detailed than that, obviously) and Republicans look back and use some kind of visceral response like "Bush is a good man; a strong man. He's a good president. You’re looking at skewed facts." --But where the hell are YOUR supporting facts and data??! (They try to use the “we’re turning the corner” set of explanations, looking at very slight recent upturns in the economy and job market, even though as a whole the entire economy is still in the dump and Iraq is FUBAR). It’s completely asinine. [Side note: Coming from a background in International Relations, I have to say that this whole idea of “Bush doctrine”, which is a slightly differentiated version of Teddy Roosevelt’s expansionist policies, cannot work in today’s international environment. You cannot just “play the hegemon” anymore. And those who think they can are naïve and ignorant.] I could honestly write about this for an hour but I'll stop now because I have work to do. Needless to say, you can’t live in DC and not have a strong opinion about this stuff. I'll just say that regardless of the any debate going on, I will be glad when November comes so maybe we can stop talking about this stuff all day, every single day. It’s stressful and frustrating as hell. I'm gonna head off and watch another bush speech about how we're safer because of his magnificent leadership. P.S. These are the thoughts of a man who is bored at work. Bored at work and getting tired of this political “debate.” Both sides have their points; both sides have their counter-points, no matter how ineffective they might be. No one is listening anymore. Except for the magical 3% of the population that can’t seem to make up their mind (I, for one, haven’t met a single one of these people), the nation is seemingly on autopilot until the election. Sigh. Addendum: Anyone who's up for a little more reading should check out this piece by Aaron on the debate about the war record.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Fahrenheit 911 Some thoughts, by Joel
Fahrenheit 911 opened on August 21 in Japan, and I finally got around to seeing it yesterday.
Of course I like to use this blog to cover my thoughts and opinions on issues, but by the time I get around to something like Fahrenheit 911, does anyone care anymore? So much ink has been spilled over this topic already, both in the professional print media and among my circle of friends. For instance my friend Phil wrote this excellent review of the film (you may have to scroll down to find it) which pretty much says everything there is to say about the film, and there's nothing really I could add to it. (On a side note, I also like the review of the film found in the Japan Times.)
So, instead of retreading that ground, I'd like to argue that if you haven't seen this film yet, you need to. Dare I say you are neglecting your civic duty as an American citizen if you vote in the November election without first watching this film. Now if you haven't seen the film yet, and you aren't planning to, then at least hear me out on this and read to the end of the post.
There's been a lot of back and forth on this film, and it's sometimes confusing to know who to believe. I myself often find that I'm agreeing with whose ever opinion I happen to be reading at the time.
On one hand there is the fact that everyone in the past four years who has come out against the Bush administration has been smeared as a liar. People like Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke who worked in the Bush administration, have impeccable resumes, are non-partisan, and have good reputations (or at least used to) have had all sorts of nasty things printed about them since they came out against Bush. It is a safe bet that if the Pope came out strongly against Bush, the next day we would hear all about what a sleazy evil liar the Pope is. So it should hardly surprise everyone that in the weeks preceding the opening of Fahrenheit 911, all sorts of attacks were made against Moore's credibility, and it is difficult to know how seriously to take these allegations.
On the other hand, those of us who are familiar with Moore's work know he does have some problems. Phil makes the point that comparisons with Ann Coulter are unfair, and I can go along with that because Ann Coulter is really in a class by herself. But because of Moore's love of cheap shots, and his selective inclusion of facts, perhaps it would be fair to say that Michael Moore is "The Rush Limbaugh of the left".
And here, I think, is where we start to get into the problem. Because of the nature of the polarized society we live in there are a number of people who listen to Rush Limbaugh faithfully, and a number of people who enjoy Michael Moore, and the groups don't seem to overlap. This is unfortunate because the very people who should be seeing Moore's film are the ones who have been listening to Limbaugh and Fox news all last year.
Often I will read the news and think to myself, "With all the awful things that are happening, how is Bush's approval ratings still at 50% ?" This is how. If a large segment of the American population barricades itself behind a wall of conservative propaganda, and refuses to listen to anything else, then this is undoubtedly why the President still has such high approval ratings. This added to the fact that the mainstream media has been appalling soft on the President, and largely uncritical of the war in Iraq, especially leading up to the war.
This is undoubtedly the reason why a large number of Americans still believe that there are WMDs in Iraq, or that Saddam had connections to Al Qaeda, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Now Moore's film is not perfect. I have a few criticism of it. I'll try and be brief here because, like I said at the opening, far too much ink has been spilled over this film already. But briefly: the film is somewhat emotionally manipulative. Like "Bowling for Columbine", the film is unfocused, and seems to jump all over the place without a coherent thesis. Moore can't seem to resist throwing in a few cheap shots, which I think unfortunately takes away a bit when he actually has a good point. And the whole sequence about the Bush family being connected with the Bin Laden family seems rather pointless and rested on the premise of guilt by association.
And yet the film has many good points as well. Moore is probably at his finest when he is reporting facts that have been well documented by others, but not given sufficient attention in the mainstream media.
The most moving scene in the film is when Moore films the mother of a dead soldier coming to Washington DC. At one point when she is dialoguing with an anti-war protester, a conservative rushes over and says, "This is all staged." The mother responds, "My son was not staged." And that is really the best point the film has to offer in its own defense. The dead soldier and the mother's grief was not something Moore made up. The images of the bombs falling on Baghdad, and of the dead and wounded Iraqi children, and of the families crying, were not staged by Michael Moore. The 1000 American soldiers who will not ever be home for Christmas again was not staged by Michael Moore.
Moore's film is far from perfect. I've always said before on this weblog that Moore needs to be taken with a grain of salt, and it is good to read criticisms of his movie along with seeing the movie itself. There is a lot of shrill right wing screaming at Moore right now, but calm debate can also be found. I like Spin-sanity as a web site that tries to be fair.
But the film needs to be watched. We must consider the cost of the war. The Bush administration and the media have discouraged us from thinking about the costs of this war. Although media in other countries have showed the dead and maimed Iraqi children, the U.S. media has been very reluctant to do this. And Bush even forbade the showing of American coffins on TV.
Moore's film, with all its faults, shows the cost of the war. Those screaming Iraqi children weren't staged.
This past year we fought a war. And although Saddam was a bad man, we didn't have to fight this war. We chose to. And if you supported the war, and if you listen consistently to people like Limbaugh or Coulter or Fox news who tell you that the war is okay, and you shut out all other opinions, or even, like "Move America Forward", try and block opposing opinions from even being heard, and then vote for Bush this November, shame on you. Anyone who is refusing to see Moore's film, shame on you.
Anyone who doesn't see this film by November has failed in their duty as an American citizen.
