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I went with a group of about 24 others to the small movie theatre on Franklin Street. It seats a little more than 300. The bathrooms are upstairs. I got there around 6:30 and found the young woman, a member of Orange County Dems, who had offered to buy advance tickets for us. I was nervous, not knowing what I'd see. I was also a bit put out that I hadn't brought an umbrella; it was a sprinkle just heavy enough to make me want an umbrella, I was wishing they'd open up the doors. 6:30 and already the line was a block long, from the theatre down to the Bank of America. The handwritten sign on the ticket window read 7:pm showing "Sold Out" as was the 2:00pm and 4:30 pm showings before that.
Finally they let us in. I found a seat down front and the movie started. Ugh. Reliving the election debacle. I felt my stomach churn almost immediately. Such a waste of democracy that was. One of the new pieces of information for me was watching member after member of the congressional black caucus get up and contest the electors. Not having cable and therefore C-SPAN, I didn't know they had done that. What a brave group they were. They actually made me proud. All that would have been required is if ONE SENATOR had signed on to any one of their petitions. No one did. NOT ONE SENATOR sponsored a petition. A sickening display of now not to run a democracy. And we want to tell Afghanistan and Iraq how to be democratic republics? Please God, not like us.
And poor Al Gore! Having to repeatedly remind his colleagues that without Senate sponsorship of their petitions, it was a no go. Al Gore not only lost the election, he had to preside over his own defeat, not once or twice or even three times! More like seven or eight times petitions were refused. Damn, that man deserves some kind of medal for sainthood.
The movie was by turns hilarious and chilling, maddening and frightening -- sometimes all at once. The now famous seven minutes of Bush reading in that elementary school comes to mind. What do you do when the leader of your own nation doesn't know what to do? You pick up a camera, that's what you do.
Moore has a wicked sense of humor which he displays effectively here. While comparing Bush's National Guard papers released in 2000 and 2004 and highlighting the part where Bush and his buddy James Bathe had been kicked out for failing to appear for their annual physicals, the opening salvos of Clapton's "Cocaine" play in the background. There wasn't a person in the Chapel Hill audience who didn't get the joke.
The transition of Lila Lipscomb from flag-waving "conservative Democrat" to grieving mother lashing out at the White House seared my soul. I found it almost as hard to watch her read her son's last letter home as she did to read it. The one touching note that I wish I knew more about was when Lila comes across an elderly Iraqi woman camped out in Lafayette Park. Now, there are two types of people who inhabit Lafayette Park: the homeless and the protesters. This woman appeared to be both. She has a big anti war display, and after some fumbling for words, they both discovered their sons were gone. Suddenly language and ethnicity didn't matter. They were simply two grieving mothers.
The frailty of the human body never ceases to amaze me. We have infinite ways to kill and maim the young and the old. Did I tell you I spent this afternoon dancing around with my two year old niece? Around and around in circles we went, laughing ourselves dizzy on the brand new hardwood floor of the brand new house in the immaculate, luxury subdivision she will live in starting next week. So many babies in Farenheit 9/11 will be dancing no more, laughing no more. Their families arms will be empty where they should be filled with hugs. What right had we to take away their own dizzy circles? Then, just when we think the fighting is over, charred bodies are strung up from utility poles. Ignominious as it was, at least their deaths were acknowledged. We can't even bring ourselves to look at tastefully flag-draped coffins coming in to Dover. We want the war, but not the messiness. We want the victory, but not to know the cost.
I almost wish, for her sake, Lila Lipscomb would have been allowed to keep her naivete. But we cannot. We cannot keep the naive world view that says we are always right, and true, and good. None of those descriptors fits the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan. In fact, those words rarely describe our foreign policy. If this film brings about a good debate in this country about our real exercises of power around the world, Farenheit 9/11 will have served its purpose. And the people who died on September 11, 2001 will not have died in vain.
I got up from my seat, heading for the exit. The group that I came with was heading to a bar down the street. Perhaps I should have gone with them. But I felt a greater need to get my thoughts out on paper. I opened the door to the alley and headed into the warm summer rain.
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