I just watched "Fahrenheit 911" again...

It's a film I haven't been able to watch in quite a while because it's just too much -- when I see it in my daily perusal of DVD titles that'll help occupy me when I should be sleeping, I inevitably say "naahhh" and move on. I can't take too much of it. It makes me cry, too, more than once during the film. But I just watched Bowling for Columbine again and, after watching the bonus material on that DVD, I felt like taking another look at Mike's next project.

What this film does to me, more than anything else, is makes me angry. Outraged, actually. It's a skillfully made piece, but the truth is that no skewing or distortion or selective editing is necessary to provoke and sustain outrage over the adventures of the Bush II misadministration -- in fact, Michael Moore could have thrown in more substantiated evidence that paints an even worse picture of what these Neocon scum have been up to. The worst parts of the story can be verified from multiple sources or are words spoken, unedited and not out of context, by the perpetrators themselves. But the film remains condemnation enough and is relevant now as it was at the time of its release.

At this point -- actually, years before this point -- anyone who worships at the feet of George W. Bush is an enemy of the people of the United States, of its Constitution, and of the entire planet. Sure, some may well be still there through sheer ignorance, an ignorance enforced and encouraged by the US propaganda machine that replaced legitimate media outlets in this country, but ignorance is no excuse in legal matters and so it is not in this case.

I'm not preemptively belligerent toward American right-wingers that I meet or interact with in my life and in my work, but I'm not going to let them start their BS with me, either. They -- the ones who are at least somewhat informed and remain strongly right-wing, anyway -- really are the bad guys, the true 'evildoers,' and in sticking with Bush and his handlers as they have they are culpable to an extent in the guilt for countless thousands of lost and destroyed lives overseas and here in the US. Freeper types deserve no compassion -- not to say that, as 'bleeding heart' liberals many of us won't freely give it, anyway -- and no respect. They're as guilty as Bush, including those who really don't know what's going on but just love all the jingoistic noise and pretty colors...hell, George W. Bush is among that number, given how unlikely it is that he actually knows what's going on.

Maybe those among us who try to 'reach out' to Freeper types -- here I must stress the gulf between the Neocon-duped modern American right-winger and the old-fashioned American conservative -- should watch this film again so they don't forget what, exactly, they're reaching out to. Not that they should roll back the drawbridges and prepare the boiling oil, but perhaps it's instructive to be reminded of what kind of people we're talking about, no matter how cute and fuzzy some may appear. People can change, and see the light -- DU certainly has many among its number who came from the other side of the political fence over the past few years (legitimate members, I mean, not disruptors) -- but I submit that anyone who hasn't seen the light by this point, if that failure is severe enough that they remain the rabid Freeper type, will probably never find the light. Among them are the however-many-percent that will remain intransigent, for whatever reason, to the bitter end. They are the core of the sickness at America's heart, a sickness directed by smarter people who don't give a damn about such detritivores but who're not above using them if it'll furtehr the goals of their agenda and the pursuit of money and power.

Last century some spiritual kin of the insane clowns (actually, they're neither, which makes them far more dangerous) that run this country labeled entire groups of people untermenschen, or 'subhuman.' I submit that, today, the extreme hard-right people who are so loudly visible on various Internet boards and in the media here are the true untermenschen. They're less than human, and this comes from someone who doesn't think all that much of humans, as a species. Or, maybe, they're all too human. To hell with them, either way.

Because it's an amazing rant and I know what it feels like to make an amazing rant and then have it get less than five responses.

:D

and questioning of your very sentences are true hallmarks of a thinking, caring, person.

I think that's the major disconnect. It's not untermenschen or ubermenschen, it's thinkers versus non-thinkers. What we're up against is a very conniving, clever elite backed by a horde, still a minority, of people who aren't thinking. Not is this horde not thinking, but it rejects thought and considers thought the antithesis of action. To say nothing of "caring", which there is not room for.

It's thinker against non-thinkers, when it comes down to it. And empathy and common (uncommon?) decency factor in, too.

I always get a little disturbed by people dismissing the Neocons In Charge as 'idiots,' because, unfortunately, they're anything but that. They may set this country on iditotic, self-destructive courses, but they are, as you say, connivingly clever manipulators. That Bush is probably truly an idiot by pretty much any standard is basically irrelevant -- never before, at least in the past century or so, has a US 'president' been so transparently no more than a convenient figurehead (even Reagan was more involved in the process or, at least, now and then appeared so).

this he must know, but he's not inclined to do the right thing.

Brain damage in the area responsible for empathic distress response might be a possibility though.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/eridani/16

:D

Really, though, brain damaged or not, the Freeper types are all too representative of the darker aspects of solidly human behavior manifested throughout history.

With all this talk of Bush being some flavor of sociopath -- not sure there can really be any doubt about that -- and the alleged prevalence of clinical sociopathy in the general population, maybe it's as simple as the cadres of rabid right-wing stooges being sociopaths basically incapable of empathy. In skimming threads here on DU I saw one claim that a quarter of the population's probably sociopathic to some degree...if that estimate is anywhere close to the truth, it'd pretty handily overlap the hard core of the wannabe-Brownshirts among us. It's a theory, anyway... :-)

:D

Really, though, brain damaged or not, the Freeper types are all too representative of the darker aspects of solidly human behavior manifested throughout history.

With all this talk of Bush being some flavor of sociopath -- not sure there can really be any doubt about that -- and the alleged prevalence of clinical sociopathy in the general population, maybe it's as simple as the cadres of rabid right-wing stooges being sociopaths basically incapable of empathy. In skimming threads here on DU I saw one claim that a quarter of the population's probably sociopathic to some degree...if that estimate is anywhere close to the truth, it'd pretty handily overlap the hard core of the wannabe-Brownshirts among us. It's a theory, anyway... :-)

a great film by a fine filmmaker...That still hits home.

if the surveys are anywhere near accurate, a big chunk of the US population that wasn't about to see it when it was released is now ready for it.

I'm looking forward to Mike's next outing. Wish he had a recurring gig on one of the TV networks (yeah, right...like they'd ever give him a platform, and HBO or whoever doing it would restrict the audience too much) for release of occasional one-hour pieces, because the pace of Neocon atrocity is too rapid to be addressed in a timely manner by his feature films.

and again, Moore is a fine filmmaker and dedicated...Whatever it is he chooses as subject...The man, has perception and it will hit home, and hard!

You know the "haves and the have mores" and also of him looking for WMDs under his desk and possibly throw in the "I hit the Trifecta" after 9-11. There should also be an ad of top Republicans telling America that Clinton's budget would destroy the economy and be disasterous to America. I may as well shit in my hand because it will certainly be filled before my wish for such ads to take place. That old saying "shit in one hand and wish in the other and see which one gets filled first" Fahrenheit 9-11 is absolutely filled with potential adfs for Democrats but we all know we will never see such things and Democrats will continue to be minority status.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

If F911 made you mad, this one will make you rage uncontrollably.