On Fri, 2 Jul 2004, Jacob Segal wrote:
> Why can't Moore try to show the interrelation of American
> foreign/military with oil interests without the implications that the
> Afghan war was primarily about oil?
Jacob, maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't believe F-9/11 ever implied the Afghan war was about oil. On the contrary, I can clearly see in my mind several people being interviewed, including Richard Clarke, saying that Bush and Rumsfeld were *reluctant* to invade Afghanistan. That they wanted to go immediately to Iraq, and were forced to change course by the unevadable fact that al-Qaida was in Afghanistan and not in Iraq. But that you could still see their reluctance in the way they did a slipshod, cursory job and got out as soon as possible, leaving as little as they could behind in terms of arms or money.
In other words, the proposed Unocal pipeline (which was not about oil, BTW, but gas) implied if anything almost the opposite from the idea that the Afghan war was done to make money. Rather it implied that the Bushies were reluctant to clamp down on Afghanistan, and reluctant to fight terrorism there, because of their interest in making money. After the African Embassy bombings, after the demonization of OBL, after Clinton sent cruise missiles to take him out, after feminists had made the awfulness of the Taliban an Oscar night cause celebre -- after all that, the Busheviks not only dropped the ball in the war on terror, they slapped everyone involved in the face by inviting the Taliban to Houston in the Spring of 2001. Moore had some wonderful footage of their representative being smiled upon benignly and led about the city, and responding to a woman reporter's question about the Taliban's dreadful treatment of women by saying "I can see you are a terrible woman. Your husband must have a lot of trouble with you." And everybody chuckled. It showed just how much they didn't care.
Also as I remember it, this pipeline bit was just a minor piece in Moore's larger mosaic of an argument about how the Busheviks have never been serious about fighting terrorists -- not before 9/11, and not now (viz the extensive footage about how they skimp on homeland security). MM is saying that what the Busheviks really care about is not terrorists, and not good vs. evil, but money. And that it is no accident that they end up following policies which make their friends a lot of money, but which don't catch many terrorists, and which are presently breeding more. The implication of the pipeline and of the turbaned tour of Texas is that there was no one in the world these people weren't willing to do business with. What the pictorial history of their deals with Saudis, Saddam and the Taliban show is that their pretense to moral absolutes is bullshit.
That's not true?
But this brings us to your earlier argument:
> I don't hate Moore, but I don't like him. Primarily I don't like how he
> makes wild, speculative arguments, when he could make precise and accurate
> ones.
Is that really so easy to do? Look at what we just went through with this pipeline argument. If I'm right, you're free associating things that aren't in the film with things that are and getting the argument of the movie dead backwards. If you're right, I'm doing exactly exactly the same. And yet you and I are very smart guys with very good memories. If we can't remember any more clearly than this only days after we saw a film that we really concentrated on and have been talking about ever since, I think it's pretty good evidence that you *can't* make precise arguments in a film like this and expect to get anywhere with it, because people aren't humanly capable of remembering that level of detail. It's not like a text where you can back and go check. It's more like an passionate conversation that just rushes by.
If you think you can make a film that is true, empassioning *and* precise, and where people can recall that precision afterwards, rather than just the vague outlines and their own associations, all I can say is go out and make it.
But if you accept that none of us can remember more than images and feelings weeks or months after we've seen a film, then I think you have to consider that making bold strokes that move people and stick in their mind is not an inferior form of logic. It's something entirely different. It's an art form akin to oratory. The fundamental unit isn't the exposition, it's the rhetorical trope. The art is in their interweaving.
This is has always been what great speeches have been made out of. You don't prove to your audience. You move them. And then after they're moved they can go home and argue about the facts. And that's exactly what's happened here. This film doesn't brainwash people. It stimulates them to think. It makes them want to argue.
What Moore has done is to bring great speechmaking to a new medium and on an enormous scale. He preaches not only in words but also in pictures. And he does it very well -- perhaps better than anyone.
Michael