By L.F. Brown
29 August 2004
It’s been a great couple of months for Michael Moore and his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. The box office is great and its impact, culturally and politically, endures and spreads. It might even contribute to John Kerry unseating George W. Bush from the presidency of the United States in the November elections. Indeed, it could be The Beginning of History and perhaps Change The Course of Civilization.
Or so novelist and critic John Berger speculates in “The beginning of history” (The Guardian, 24 August) and, it is safe to say, wishes. Well, who wouldn’t want a new history and a better course for the world? Up to now it’s been mostly awful. Times of wars and shed blood have been often and swiftly achieved, outweighing times of peace and prosperity that have been relatively brief and slowly reached. And who better to prepare the way than an independent voice, someone who can identify with those who are usually not spoken for, or to? But I was meant to be talking about Michael Moore here. According to Mr. Berger:
“Fahrenheit 9/11 is something different. It has succeeded in intervening in a political programme on the programme's own ground. For this to happen a convergence of factors were needed. The Cannes award and the misjudged attempt to prevent the film being distributed played a significant part in creating the event. To point this out in no way implies that the film as such doesn't deserve the attention it is receiving. It's simply to remind ourselves that within the realm of the mass media, a breakthrough (a smashing down of the daily wall of lies and half-truths) is bound to be rare. And it is this rarity which has made the film exemplary. It is setting an example to millions - as if they'd been waiting for it.”
While it is clear from the article that he holds Mr. Bush in severe contempt, I’m not sure whether it quite matches the contempt he has for the “millions.” That Mr. Berger is unaware of the heated debate over the film, with quite convincing allegations of distortions, fabrications and misrepresentations in Mr. Moore’s latest work, is highly doubtful. In fact, much the same things were said about his previous work, Bowling for Columbine, although the errors were more blatant in that particular case. Yet Mr. Moore is held as a shining example to the rest of us, with no caveats included. But Mr. Berger has this covered, or so he thinks:
“What makes it an event is the fact that it is an effective and independent intervention into immediate world politics. Today it is rare for an artist to succeed in making such an intervention, and in interrupting the prepared, prevaricating statements of politicians. Its immediate aim is to make it less likely that President Bush will be re-elected next November. To denigrate this as propaganda is either naive or perverse, forgetting (deliberately?) what the last century taught us. Propaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast. Propaganda invariably serves the long-term interests of some elite.”
Now I certainly learnt something new by finding out what the correct definition of propaganda is, but bypass his semantics, replace “propaganda” with “misleading” and his point is exactly what? Perhaps it is that you are either with us or against us. That Mr. Moore had to use half-truths to smash through other half-truths has the grounds for an interesting discussion, one that defenders of Mr. Moore rarely seem to get into. It is the message that counts, so it goes, not the messenger or his portrayal of it. So what are some fudging of the facts, misrepresentations and hazy logic, as long as the goal is righteous? The “millions” should apparently just be fooled. And what if some notice these discrepancies between facts and half-truths? There is surely a chance that the impact of the message would be discounted or even dismissed.
A more charitable version of this argument is that while Mr. Moore is being less than honest, at least he is widening the political discourse to those who would not be otherwise interested. While more appealing and slightly less condescending, it is still wrong but insightful. In this seemingly worldwide determination to ensure that there are not four more years of Bush, pragmatism trumps veracity. That Mr. Kerry, when it mattered, supported Mr. Bush’s proposals, despite his twisting and turning after the fact, isn’t widely considered worthy of much discussion. And that many are uncertain about exactly what Mr. Kerry proposes as an alternative is quietly forgotten.
This airbrushing out of mere inconveniences is typical of Mr. Berger’s article:
“The film proposes that the White House and Pentagon were taken over in the first year of the millennium by a gang of thugs so that US power should henceforth serve the global interests of the corporations: a stark scenario which is closer to the truth than most nuanced editorials.”
But this is Moore-country stuff. For a start, The House of Saud was a main target in the film, ostensibly a corrupt influence justified by the need for a steady source of oil. The truth about “the corporations” is that they have always had influence in the White House, just like unions or any other special interest group. But this conceals the fact that while many corporations have had interests in the government, so many haven’t. And in Mr. Berger’s new history, all previous administrations have been saints. Would he argue that Bill Clinton’s savage bombing of Serbia was not thug-like?
Or perhaps his new history would rewrite the past much like Mr. Moore is inclined to do. After all, in Mr. Moore’s previous film, Bowling for Columbine, the indictment of NATO’s Kosovo campaign was strong. Yet, a couple of years later, when the Democratic party’s presidential nominee’s race was under way, Mr. Moore publicly campaigned for General Wesley Clark, the man in charge of the very bombing campaign he was so critical of earlier. In an open letter called “The Bombing of Kosovo” he gleefully bashed those conservatives who were publicly against the war. Whether he was right or not doesn’t erase his own hypocrisy, rendering his letter a virtual post-dated self-indictment:
“Now, it is time for all of us to stop Clinton and his disgusting, hypocritical fellow democrats who support him in this war. It is amazing to watch all these "liberal" congress members line up behind the President. In a way, I'm glad it's happening, if only to show the American people there is little difference between the Democrats and the usually war-loving Republicans. Aren't you getting a kick watching the Pat Buchanans and the Henry Hydes sounding like pacifists! These politicians can change stripes at the drop of a hat (or bomb) because, ultimately, they are the same animal, participants in a one-party system that tries to fool the people by going by two names ("Democrat" and "Republican").”His antipathy to the Democrats disappeared when he was given the opportunity to gain prime seats at the recent party nomination convention. In the same letter he had interesting things to say about those who did and did not go to Vietnam, reversing his position a couple of years later when it came to Mr. Bush and General Clark:
“What a sad, pathetic man Bill Clinton is. Though many have criticized him for dodging the draft, I actually admired the fact that he refused to go and kill Vietnamese. Not all of us from the working class had that luxury, and tens of thousands of our brothers died for absolutely no damn reason. For this "anti-war" President to order such a misguided, ruthless -- and, yes, cowardly -- attack from the air is a disappointment of massive proportions.”
And while he was to again express his compassion for his “brothers” when it came to the Iraq war, for example in Fahrenheit 9/11, he was not reluctant to engage in a kind of fratricide when it suited:
“I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.”
So much for his “example.” And for all his talk of concern for the working class, his prescriptions, essentially more government intervention and less free markets, would do much more harm than good. Unfortunately, Mr. Berger has fallen into the same trap:
“There is something else which is astounding. The aim of Fahrenheit 9/11 is to stop Bush fixing the next election as he fixed the last. Its focus is on the totally unjustified war in Iraq. Yet its conclusion is larger than either of these issues. It declares that a political economy which creates colossally increasing wealth surrounded by disastrously increasing poverty, needs - in order to survive - a continual war with some invented foreign enemy to maintain its own internal order and security. It requires ceaseless war. Thus, 15 years after the fall of communism, a decade after the declared end of history, one of the main theses of Marx's interpretation of history again becomes a debating point and a possible explanation of the catastrophes being lived. It is always the poor who make the most sacrifices, Fahrenheit 9/11 announces quietly during its last minutes. For how much longer? There is no future for any civilisation anywhere in the world today which ignores this question. And this is why the film was made and became what it became. It's a film that deeply wants America to survive.”
The war’s pretext has now shifted from being the serving of the “global interests of the corporations” to some kind of circus performance for the disillusioned American audience, all part of a continuation of “ceaseless war.” Yet his prescription, presumably a new variation of socialism, will still be total war, on all aspects of people’s lives. Marx’s interpretation of history, that an increasingly impoverished working class - due to the iniquities of capitalism - would rise up and overthrow the existing order, was proved wrong when capitalism managed to improve dramatically the lot of the majority of the immiserated where it was adequately attempted. When adherents of Marx tried to create a new world in the economically backward Russia, quite contrary to his belief that it would first be tried in an advanced capitalist nation, it proved an unmitigated disaster. To recover from the ill effects of its nationalising War Communism, Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy, which was a return to some kind of free market system. While this improved matters on the economic front to a degree, the brutality and incessant interventionism of the Soviet regime continued.
Mr. Berger asks how much longer can the poor be ignored. The short answer is that as long as the common denominator in most catastrophes, the institution of government, is uncritically praised, the poor as well as ceaseless wars will be longer with us. The same too goes for false prophets.
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