Funky Days

If you're a regular reader, you may have noticed that I've been erratic in (mostly not) posting the past few weeks.

I've been in a funk. I'm going through some awful family stuff I won't even talk about except to say that it has to do with the root of all evil and family jealousies and control issues and all the really fun stuff.

It feels like the negatives in my life are overwhelming the positives. It sucks. It, along with all the usual slings and arrows of life and then some, has thrown me into a real testing of my faith.

I couldn't have written the 'Sanctimonius' story, except that I already had it in my head. I meant to write it a week earlier, but I didn't. I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 on opening night, but couldn't find my voice to say anything about it for a good week.

My voice is coming back a bit. Maybe that means I'm getting through this. I hope so.

Anyway, here's my bit regarding the movie. I wasn't sure if I would like it -- Michael Moore is sometimes a bit over the top. But I did like it. Here's what I got out of it, apart from the stuff you've probably already heard a lot about -- the queasy-making election results, the big lies regarding WMDs, etc.


"Who's Your Daddy?"

Amid all the brouhaha over Fahrenheit 9/11, I thought I'd offer my impressions from the movie.
Let's get this out of the way: Yes, President Bush is bashed mercilessly, but filmmaker Michael Moore just helps Bush bash himself through video clips.
For example, one thing I'll always remember from Fahrenheit 9/11 is Bush in deer-in-headlights panic when he was told about the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center. Poor man, he didn't have anyone to tell him what to do. So he sat there, with a grade-school class, reading a story. He had no clue what else to do. There was no one there to take control of the situation for him.
How presidential. What a world leader.
Here's another thing I'll remember from the movie, and it makes me fond of Michael Moore. It's Moore's love for the people back in his hometown of Flint, Mich. These are the poor people on whose backs this country was built, as Moore points out.
These are the have-nots who see joining the military as the only ticket out of a low- to no-employment economy, and who are shamelessly recruited into service. These kids are the ones who get killed in places like Iraq, while the children of the "haves" avoid military service. Moore found only one congressman with a child in military service.
It's class warfare of the most awful kind. It's cynical exploitation of poor youth.
One young man from Flint shakes his head during an interview. He'd looked at the bombed-out buildings in an Iraqi war zone on television, then looked at the crumbling, boarded-up buildings in Flint. He recognizes the war zone at home.
Juxtapose that image with this one: the contempt George W. shows for these people. Here's a snickering quote from Bush as he addresses a well-heeled crowd at a fund-raiser: "This is an impressive crowd, the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base."
Ah, yes. Government of and by and to benefit the have-mores. Like your friendly neighbors at Halliburton, its subsidiaries, and the Carlyle Group. Among the companies Carlyle owns are those that make equipment, vehicles and munitions for the U.S. military.
Guess who works for Carlyle? None other than former President Bush and his secretary of state James Baker. How convenient to have such people helping you get defense contracts, especially Bush Senior, who still gets his daily CIA briefings.
These briefings are no doubt very helpful to the Saudis, some of the Bush family's best friends and business associates. The Saudi Arabian ambassador, Prince Bandar, is known around Washington as "Bandar Bush," he's so tight with the Bush family. Earlier in George W.'s career, the Saudis propped him up in various oil companies, which Bush promptly ran into the ground.
Why, as Moore pointed out, do the Saudis need to invest in Texas oil? They don't. They're investing in White House influence through the Bushes. This is something else I'll remember from the movie. And the Saudis own around 7 percent of the United States.
George W. makes $400,000 per year in office. The Saudis have put $1.4 billion into Bush enterprises over the years. As Moore asked, who you gonna think about first when you wake up in the morning — the American people, who pay you $400,000, or the Saudis, who've paid you $1.4 billion? "Who's your daddy?"
There have always been corrupt politicians. There have always been backroom deals. But there's something so calculated, so shameless, so heartless, so low about this administration, an administration that made up a ball of lies to get us into a war in Iraq for the corporate profit of its cronies.
Fahrenheit 9/11 is plenty hot enough to make my blood boil. If I were feeling feistier, I'd say, "I'm ready for the revolution."