The Necessity of Michael Moore:
The Rude Pundit saw Fahrenheit 9/11 a couple of nights ago, a 7pm feature at a big-ass multiplex with three screens showing Spiderman 2, all sold out, and still Fahrenheit 9/11 was packed. Seven o'clock on a Wednesday night. During the film, a few people walked out, many people made sounds of astonishment, a couple of little old ladies (literally - they were small, they were really old, and they were, in fact, female) kept talking about how much they hated George W. Bush. "Why doesn't he do something?" one asked the other during the seven-minute stare in Florida on 9/11. "Because he doesn't know how to do anything," came the reply.

It is a messy, rambling, disjointed film, to be sure, but that's not meant as a criticism. It has to be that way, because what Moore has done is try to cram it all in -all the betrayal, hatred, evil, death, and destruction wrought by this administration. It's as if he knows he's got one shot: get the asses in the seats and throw it all at them. Something's gonna stick, whether it's the seven minutes or the story of Lila Lipscomb. Moore, the passionate citizen, is saying, "This is how passionate we should all be about our democracy." And that makes Michael Moore a dangerous man.

What's really impressive is how Moore has fucked with the right wing. Think about it this way: O'Reilly and Limbaugh call Moore "extreme," or "un-American," or "loony." Now, let's say O'Reilly and Limbaugh fans go to see the film and they end up agreeing with at least part of the movie. The right's constant attack can't stand up to that image of Bush in the classroom. When you stare into that scared, nauseous face - really, the man looked like he was about to barf - you see the Emperor's New Clothes, you see the hidden reality of the White House, you see the lie that we've been asked to feed on for the last three years. You see the kind of unadulterated fear that makes you go slack in the sphincter. That face makes you realize that all the fearmongering done by Bush and his administration is just a projection of his own mortal panic. You see that. And maybe, just maybe, you turn against the O'Reilly's and the oh-so-many Scarboroughs and the sad, pathetic Hitchenseseses.

This is not to mention some on the left who are trying to gain street cred by dismissing the film or not thinking it radical enough. The answer to them is this: here's why you stupid fuckers have failed to get anything meaningful done for the last thirty fucking years and you've been ridden like whores working the rodeo room at the Chicken Ranch. You have a rallying point now; it's time to take your head out of your dogma-stained asses and fucking rally.

The other way Moore has fucked with the establishment is that the more time some members of the media spend on their jihad against the film, the further it demonstrates what Moore has said in all of his interviews on his press junkets: why didn't you question the Bush administration like you're questioning this film? Those who would give the powerful a pass at the risk of the lives of the populace have no validity in questioning the facts behind the film. You have cannot re-gain your credibility by attacking a movie when people are dying because of you.

So, for Independence Day, let's remember that the Founders of this nation faced execution if they signed the Declaraion and the Revolution failed. To the British, that simple affirmation of rights was intensely, incredibly dangerous. And let us celebrate those who truly want to live up to that legacy. Michael Moore, at risk to his family, has jammed a fist up the complacent ass of the electorate who have awakened in prostate-massaged ecstasy at the ejaculatory possibility of taking back the country.

At that 7pm showing, just five minutes before the end, the lights came up and the film stopped as a voice called out, "Leave the theatre." As we were ushered to the exits and told to go across the street, we wondered if a bomb threat had been called in. It turned out that someone had pulled the fire alarm. The Spiderman crowd was pissed. They didn't know if Spidey would beat Doc Ock. The Fahrenheit 9/11 crowd just stood around each other and talked and talked, about how appropriate it was to be ordered away, but we knew that the film would give us no catharsis, that that would only be found in the parking lots outside the theatre.