the empire strikes back... and again... and again...

[rone]

Robert Jensen writes a great article in which he criticizes Michael Moore for, essentially, being a lazy blowhard who should have used his considerable talent and assets to make a more effective movie that takes American imperialism to task, which is pretty much what i've been saying for the last few weeks, except Jensen does fifty times a better job.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie, but I'm not sure I can get behind his criticism. He's one of those people whose preferred Iraq policy would have been to neither invade nor contain, but to just lift the Clinton-era sanctions and containment and just let Saddam have whatever Napoleonic adventures he wanted, in the name of renouncing empire. All of the available choices were bad, but I personally think that one would have been the worst, and it bugs me now that so many of the lead organizers of the antiwar movement started out as advocates for it in the nineties—while the human cost of the sanctions program was real, their frequent exaggerations of it ultimately provided ammunition for invasion advocates.

Besides, weren't you a Wesley Clark supporter? Clark would be the Antichrist to this guy, the poster-boy for what he calls Moore's final lie.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I guess the trick is to decide whether it is our job to put an end to "Napoleonic adventures" worldwide. I'd like to see, at the very least, some consistency (as well as, if we're going to do it, do it well). I can at least claim to not have been a war advocate in the `90s. My opinion is that if a rogue country's neighbors aren't concerned enough about its actions to either do something about it, or ask the UN to do something about it, then why the hell should the US be concerned?

I can turn a blind eye to Afghanistan, despite the huge cock-up we made of it, because it is possible that our actions there hampered Al Qaida activities.

Clark may well be a soldier, but he didn't exactly strike me as an imperialist, unless i'm not understanding what you're getting at.

This seems to boil down to

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

"He should have made the movie I want to make." You and Jensen want a movie about how America screws the world. Moore made a movie about how Bush screws America, trampling some of the rest of the world in the process. They're two different stories with different motivations--interwoven, of course, but one doesn't make the other just go away. The story you want is about questions of fairness toward the rest of the world. Moore's work is about whether people's choices in the voting booth and (less in this film, but still present in things like the mention of Enron) the marketplace are even in line with their own self-interest.

[eviltofu.livejournal.com]

You mean "Moore" could be done?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

You've got a great point. I still think Moore could have made his movie without his trademarked cheap shots and shenanigans... but i guess he's gotta be him.