You know, it seems to me that people are just looking for something to pick on when it comes to this film. If the "peace group" he'd gone to were made up of people of Middle Eastern heritage, I know damned well someone would pipe up and say, "Moore is implying that only Arabs are suffering under the thumb of the current administration!" If Moore even considered the racial make-up of the group (which I think he did not... he chose the group specifically because of the infiltration incident that was later uncovered... he had no control over what race people in the group were), then the whole thing packs a bigger punch BECAUSE they're white and Asian. Sure, we'd expect minorities to be harassed, because, unfortunately, the terrorists were mostly Saudi's, and people who live sheltered lives and/or feed on the bullshit that propaganda services like FoxMoos feed them will immediately become suspicious of all "swarthy" people. But, when it's a group of mostly white people, it's even scarier because there's no racial profiling going on (however unjust racial profiling is). This illustrates that this Homeland Security bullshit is not excluding as many as we thought it might... (unless, of course, you have lots of money and are a registered Republican).

The "Little Stevie Wonder" comment I heard as a term of endearment. As stated above, that's what he used to be called when he was a child performer. It's even on his albums.

Has anyone stopped to think that perhaps depicting the native dancers of Palau was the easiest way to differentiate that nation from others mentioned? It's not as though he showed someone in blackface, or a black person smoking crack, or a Latino with a bandana around his head and a flannel buttoned only at the collar. The native dancing is a legitimate part of the Palau culture, and something they're proud of. It's not negative at all. Stop reaching.

He never said anything about "backward countries." What he was saying is that these countries are small and concerned with their own welfare, and have little if any ability to offer any sort of assistance or support to the war. So, in essence, their "willingness" amounted to nothing.

This is just yet another instance that proves to me that if there is *something* to complain about somewhere, someone will dig deep enough to find it... which is what Mr. Jensen seems to have done.

I haven't seen the film yet, so maybe I should reserve judgement until I have, but unless you and Jensen are both describing it erroneously, it sounds like there is definitely, at the very least, some kind of objectionable component. The thing is, I don't expect all that much from Michael Moore. He has certainly done good work at times in the past. But he's hardly the sort of radical thinker that I would wholeheartedly endorse. At best he's an assertive progressive who raises the public's awareness about issues and ideas that they might not otherwise run across. At his worst, he capitalizes on the perception that he's some kind of representative of the left and/or opposition to Bush and/or opposition to the war in Iraq, helping to silence the multiplicity of voices on these issues while providing a rather shallow, soft-ball critique. So, yeah, I wasn't really expecting all that much from F 9-11, though I will probably end up seeing it at some point.

All that having been said--Robert Jensen is such a total weenie that I almost want to change my mind about Michael Moore just so I don't have to agree with him about anything.

Raven, I don't think Michael Moore gets a pass on all criticism just because he has some important things to communicate. I appreciated the way the movie tied in a lot of different aspects of 9/11, the Bush administration, and the WOT in one package, but I still think there was some unexamined stereotyping going on.

At the same time, I don't think the criticisms being leveled at this movie by those who disagree with the anti Iraq War message are at all valid. The most powerful pieces in the movie are the testimonials, and those can't be refuted. I was moved by the soldier who said he would risk going to jail rather than returning to Iraq to kill more poor people. I was moved by the woman who lost her son. I was moved by much of the strong personal stories that made up what I felt to be the better part of the film. I was also pleasantly surprised that the movie didn't seem to dwell on sensationalism. There wasn't too terribly much focus on visual images of wounded or dead soldiers (although, arguably, ANY visual images are almost too much), and I was impressed by Moore's decision to not include images of the falling towers.

But at the same time, I was disheartened by the undercurrent of racism mentioned above. I totally see what Jensen is saying, and i almost totally agree.

And, Susan...I totally knew you would say that, too.

I'd have to say that, although I do agree with the bits about the footage for the coalition of the willing, I don't neccessarily think that the fact that the peace group in question largely consisted of white people inherently makes it rascist, subtly or otherwise.

The group is who defines their membership, and if anyone should be criticised for it's variety of membership (or percieved lack thereof), it's the group. The group has who they have, and if he planted minorities in it to make it more palatable, that, in my opinion would be rascist, and fraudulent to boot. He doesn't however control the group. It was a stellar example of issues raised by the new circumstances, and racism, in my opinion, doesn't even figure into it.

I say this, as a minority. I'm not offended by the fact that he looked at a group of people who were peace activists, and basically pacifistic, and laughed at the idea of them being terrorists, just because the group happened to be mostly white.

I actually feel more offended, and get my "wierd feeling", (which is, the wierd feeling I get when someone starts glancing at me before they use terms like hispanic or latino, and whisper it under their breath) when people imply that I should be offended by this. It feels somewhat subtly like that patronizing form of rascism which is considered acceptable now. In some cases, it's a politically correct way to be rascist, in other cases, it's the confusion that has arisen from a circumstance in which rascism is such a difficult issue to work around, that noone knows how to just be normal and natural around each other.

The group was, what it was, a seemingly non-threatening group of pacifists, which were mostly white. Him calling attention to the fact that they were non-threatening, doesn't warrant the race card, imo. If racism is an issue at all, the issue is with the group, not his reporting their story. (Unless of course, he was hiding anyone who wasn't white in the back room somewhere while filming.)

However, the footage of the groups, were not pictures of the group in question, and he does have more choice and control of the imagery presented there (whereas with the group in question, he's limited to pictures of the group), and chose pictures which leant to steriotyping.

Thanks for your food for thought, and I hope I provided input without insult.

Just to make it clear, devcandy, I'm not saying anyone has to be offended by it, too. But I am saying that Jensen has made a valid point, and I think it would be wise for Moore to take this kind of criticism to heart.

I appreciate your comment here, and you certainly have provided input without insult. Thanks!

What I find most interesting about this film is the avalanche of criticism it's getting from the left. This is not to say that I disagree with it (and yours).

well, not that i have any right to claim i'm any kind of representative of "the left", whatever that is, but isn't that how "we" do things? it's both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. we usually want to expose our own and each other's ideas to the strongest critical thinking possible, and distrust orthodoxy or lockstep thinking. the upside of this is being able to smell bullshit, but the downside is our penchant for the circular firing squad, to coin a cliche.

i personally would not be all that surprised [if disappointed] to find a certain amount of unconscious whiteycentrism in moore's scripting of this whole story, but it seems to me that the midwestern mostly-white mindset is the one he plays to because it's the one he knows best and can speak to from the heart. if he's dealing in stereotypes, obviously they're harmful and it's reasonable to criticize them, but it's also helpful to realize that enormous numbers of americans think in exactly those same kind of stereotypes, and it's unlikely we're going to be able to shock them out of that type of thinking all at once. so while it may be a valid criticism that's worth discussing, i don't know for sure if it really invalidates the message of the movie as a whole. anything that gets americans arguing about something without using the standard talking points they've been spoon fed by the power structure is probably worthwhile.