Dennis Redmond wrote:
>
> > If the other bin Ladens wondered if they could have access to their
> > lawyers or if they would enjoy equality before the law in the United
> > States in the period immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I
> > wouldn't blame them.
>
> Irrelevant. Money and connections got a bunch of potential material
> witnesses to an egregious crime against humanity a get-out-of-jail card.
Try looking at it from another angle, of those active in anti-war groups and discussing _how_ to use Moore's film in their work. That is how we spent a good deal of our time Sunday locally. And the Saudi-Arabia section caused trouble of several kinds. (I haven't seen it myself yet, so I'm going on what I've read about it and what I heard others say in conversation.)
First of all it wasted a lot of our meeting time. We had to get rid of the conspiracism it provoked (or awoke) in some of those present. It also figured prominently in the remarks of those who were worried about the film's accuracy. Now clearly (as I understand the episode) it was a nice illustration of how rich folk stick together, but was totally irrelevant to explaining 9/11. And looking at the film strictly as an object of contemplation, rather than as (what I have called it) the first half of a leaflet, that is not a bad way at all to start it off. But clearly also those of us who are _using_ it and not merely sitting back and admiring it (or not) as a spectacle have a problem, or several related problems. But considered as a leaflet, as agitation (i.e. as directed at new people) the episode violates some first principles, one of which is agitation is not supposed to provoke factual arguments with those it is addressed to. It appeals to shared knowledge and shared points of view.
The new people at Sunday's BNCPJ meeting (and there were, thanks to Moore and our leafletting of the theatre, a lot of them) seemed to divide (I don't know in what proportions) into two responses to the Saudi episode: (a) they thought it might prove something about 9/11 or (b) it cast doubt on the whole film for them. We finally sorted it out (I hope) for most of the people (old and new) in attendance, but the discussion would have been more cogent (and more likely to bring the new people back for the next meeting) had we not had to deal with this whiff of conspiracism in the movie.
As to Dennis's claim of "irrelevance" in respect to Yoshie's admittedly somewhat abstract point, that claim rings rather hollow on a list that has gloried in criticizing "The Left" in rather more abstract terms over the last few years. (E.g., all the whining and squalling about "bad" left writers on a list to which none of the alleged violaters were either named or on the list. Either seriously face Yoshie's point or never again dare to quote Marx's remark about criticizing all that is. I too am somewhat skeptical of Yoshie's argument here, but I haven't been among the chorus of critics of the generic left and "all that is."
Carrol