I have thought all day about what I wanted to say about this movie. I was left with such a powerful feeling of shame and disgust towards our government and our citizens about the Iraq war that I wanted to let some of my passion recede before I posted this message.
All and all the film was extremely powerful. Love Moore, or hate him, but you can not deny the power of the message. You can disagree with the message, even contest its reliability, but there is no question that it held power.
I think most of the arguments against the film have been rather baseless. Many people have been calling it dishonest without pointing to a single example. However, two examples that I heard cited were that Moore lied about the Saudis being questioned by the FBI when they and the Bin Ladens were flown out og the country on September 13th, and the other is that he lied about how many congressmen had children in the service. My response to the Saudi charter flight issue is that I don't remember him ever saying directly that they were not interviewed, though I do remember an FBI agent that Moore interviewed inferring that not all members were interviewed, which, by the way, happens to be a fact. And about the whole congressmen's children charge, well, he never said how many congressmen had children in the service, he said how many people had children serving in Iraq. So, I think both of those complaints are really very weak complaints.
Frankly, I would say that I did not find the first 2/3 of the picture to be as powerful as the Iraq portion. Mostly because I already knew all the Saudi-Bush stuff. However, I did think it started to play like an X-Files episode with the conspiracy music and Moore's gotcha narration.
The real important stuff in this movie was Iraq. There are certain images that are burnt into our minds regarding war. A girl running naked in the street, screaming because she has been burned by napalm. A buddhist monk setting himself ablaze on the streets of Vietnam. Well, I saw a picture in this film that has seered an impression on my mind that I will never forget. A very young Iraqi boy, maybe 3, screaming in absolute agony, having his head sewn back together like an infant Frankenstein. This is what we did, and not just to him, but to 17,000 Iraqis. Think about all the families, all the collective lives that we runied. 17,000 human beings, and for what? 17,000....... If you left this movie and you saw the American flag anywhere in sight, and your first inclination wasn't to turn from it in disgust, then you have no soul.
Today, I am ashamed to be an American. I am ashamed of our government. I am ashamed of our military. I am ashamed of our troops(that's right, I said it.). I am ashamed of my countrymen. But most of all I am ashamed that I did not do enough. I did not yell loud enough. None of us did.
Thanks to Michael Moore, and a lot of other liberals who are trying to force the American people to look closely into our collective heart of darkness, then maybe, just maybe, Bush will be thrown out of office. God help us if we don't.