From: edeads (edeads@prodigy.net)
Date: Sat Jun 26 2004 - 16:19:02 BST
my response to David Brooks' editorial. How does the movie fit with the moq?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/26/opinion/26BROO.html
Now David,
"Adulation"? Give Mr. Moore some credit. He is exposing Bush in an era of media censorship. Before this movie I didn't know 15 of the 18 highjackers were from Saudi Arabia (did I get the numbers right?). Gosh, I thought they were Iraqis. Now how could one of average intelligence miss such a basic fact ... maybe Moore has a point, "We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance." Early in 2003 almost half of Americans believed that the 9-11 highjackers included Iraqis; I wonder how we could have come to such a conclusion. Perhaps these were the "liberal" Americans you refer to.
Does this minor oversight pale in comparison to our greater war mission? This seemed to be your position when you defended the greater war mission on Public Television against the backdrop of inhumanities against Iraqi prisoners at Abuh Graib. Us dumb Americans; even you failed to mention the profit motive as being part of this greater war mission against terrorism. If I can miss a basic fact like where the highjackers were from, I can understand your missing the fact that a primary motivation for this war was profit.
But what I can't understand is your statement that the central insight of Michael Moore's work is, using your words, "that Americans are kind of crappy." I guess Ralph Nader, who saved the lives of many Americans, would, by your logic, fit this category as well. My grandfather died from black lung disease working in a coal mine, and I wish Nader's legislative successes in worker safety preceded my grandfather's career.
Let me spell this out for you. When Michael said we "suffer from an enforced ignorance" he is pointing to the powers that enforce this ignorance as being crappy, not the Americans. Both Moore and Nader believe in the right of people to not die for the purpose of making millionaires into billionaires.
This liberal opinion must sound outrageous in your Sartre-scorched ears, as if there is a complete lack of morality. You even note that, "The standards of socially acceptable liberal opinion have shifted." Heavens. How could these liberals even think of holding the powers of corruption accountable, and bringing factual information to the public?
Tough to guess, but I think you might have the answer, buried in your sprawling name dropping: Dewey, Nieburh, King, Hemingway, Descartes, Kant, Goethe, Chomsky, and even Paul Revere. I've been too busy in the mines to get to all these. But Hemingway I did read, "The Old Man and the Sea."
I think the United States is like that old man and Iraqi oil is like the big fish. We went to Iraq and we will likely take over that country and effectively control the oil and the economy, just as the old man finally got the big fish. But the sharks have smelled the oil and some have taken hits on this prize already. By the time we make our way back to shore there will be no prize, except for the sharks.
And in the end, we will lay weary on our bed, just as the old man, concerned about whether the sickness we taste in our mouth will do us in, and thinking that we might have gone out too far. But there is one difference between the old man and the powers that run the United States. The old man, he loved the sea.
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