  "I'm listening but I may or may not agree. " I finally saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last evening. It was entertaining, edgy, funny, and emotionally evocative. It was classic Moore. It was also somewhat, well, boring. The endless humdrum of Bush bashing, corporate bashing, and capitalism bashing got old after about, say, forty-five minutes. I suppose, to true believers or to those who don't know any better, it was probably not at all boring. I wanted to walk out not so much because I disagree with Mr. Moore's thesis (which as far as I could gather amounted to "Please, please, please vote for Kerry or we're all going to hell. "), as because I'm pretty well-informed. No, not just nightly news, New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist informed, I'm also studies, books, listening to all sides informed.
Yeh, I'm tooting my own horn and being condescending and all, but quite frankly, Moore's documentary consists mostly of old news cleverly chopped to form a bitter and emotionally charged polemic. Wait, not just old news, but stale, old claptrap that any politics/policy/world affairs wonk would have already gathered, and gathered in CONTEXT. It bothers me that nothing was put in the context, not just of current affairs, but also in the context of history.
It bothers me that the movie is labeled "documentary" when really its just a Rush Limbaughsian propaganda film tailored to the "don't tell me too much details, just feed my emotions" masses. It bothers me that no one, not Mr. Moore, not Mr. Limbaugh, not Mr. Bush, is clearly explaining that nothing about terrorism is simple and that they are unsure about what to do about it. This whole terrorism thing was, at least, 60 years in the making. Its not all our (the U.S.) fault, but we do have some culpability.
Its the product of historical forces and the answer to the problem is as elusive as its origins. I'm going to now read a whole lot about the Ottoman Empire, WWI, and the formation of the modern day middle east from non-biased historians. I suggest you do the same and form your own opinions. Oh and if you must vote for someone, well good, you should vote! 
