Michael posted a link to a review of F9/11 which had the following:
I have a problem with all the liberal whining in America over professional soldiers being killed in Iraq, actually still a small number compared to the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed both in the war and in the decade-long run-up of brutally harsh American-imposed restrictions, and it is no different for Moore's scene of a mother's tears. No, I'm not talking about the poor mother herself whose loss is real, but about the calculation of Moore's film in using the scene and about the very predictable result on American audiences. Pictures of a small number of flag-draped coffins appear to be almost the only thing fueling America's limp antiwar movement.
1) What is wrong with calculation in a movie? Have the films of Ozu, Fassbinder, Anthony Mann, Hitchcock, Frankenheimer, Murnau not reached Canada yet? If not, the leftists of our great neighbor to the north need a cinema intervention right away. They better start going to the Cinematheque in Toronto with greater frequency.
2) What is wrong with a result (predictable or otherwise) that leads to progressive action? I have never understood this purity fetish among leftists -- both ideological and sexual. Different people will be moved to action by different aspects of a complex situation. If we are working toward the same goals in roughly the same ethical framework, who cares what has motivated a person to do so? Seems like a waste of time to fret over intentions and why our allies are working with us.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister